>be me, i divulge to friend that i use vpn.
"I refuse to use the web without using a vpn, i blurt out"
<Friend calls me an idiot for believing the Nord vpn youtuber shilling.
>He thinks that i fell for advertisement, but i picked it due to company being located outside 14 eyes.
<he tells me; "vpn does not really protect my traffic data nor offer any privacy."
>I joke "if i wanted true privacy i'd be sending encrypted messages through carrier pigeons."
<He asks;"so why do you use need it anyways?"
>reply with "i want my ip obfuscated and i wish to bypass censorship (which works bretty gud)
< he still thinks my reason is kind of dumb because "i am paying for useless proxy" which also introduces more latency.
>I tell him,"i know, i don't care about some extra latency"
<he suggests that i should go into my router to set up a custom dns address, *he links me "server ip".
I'ts free anon.
>i quickly look it up and give it a cursory glance, and can't see any added benefit to using dns. (am i missing something here?)
>Decline suggestion," Nah thanks, i'm good pal i still got 2 years left on my Nord vpn to use up XD"
<He basically tells me i'm a smoothbrain.
>suddenly ......
(paranoia claxon goes awooga awooga awooga! Got the feeling the guy was telling me fud in order to social engineer me into dropping the vpn. And get me to route my traffic through "his dns server?" So he can eavesdrop on my traffic?)
Am i insane here or is my caution rational?