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Privacy researcher debunks Microsoft Edge’s free VPN marketing, says it's "NOT a VPN"
(www.windowslatest.com)
this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
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The original use case for this stuff was unencrypted HTTP with a public WiFi connection, in which case your ISP is the owners of whatever shop you're in and yeah they could see everything.
If you're at home or whatever it offers effectively no benefits, doesn't "block trackers" or whatever nonsense like Nord claims, but I don't think Microsoft ever claimed that it did.
Porn.
Also my ISP sniffs packets enough to send copyright complaints, so I’d rather outsource that exposure to a country with privacy laws.
Mine only sends those for torrenting, that doesn't need much scrutiny to detect
Some VPNs can block trackers in a very narrow sense. If they are set up to prevent DNS leaks and provide an internal DNS service, that can blackhole ads and trackers just like PiHole, Adguard Home, et al.
There's still a bunch of other ways to fingerprint people online, but I wouldn't say using a VPN at home offers no benefits.