VPN stands for Virtual Private Network.
To jump to the chase with everything No VPN's don't protect you from viruses, No you're not blocking ads when using a VPN.
Here's what a VPN does do
Portal traffic to another country, allowing you to view regional specific websites.
Access content in different countries than the one you're in, think (Netflix, YouTube, Etc.)
Hide Outbound Traffic from your ISP to prevent and reduce chances of throttling your data.
Change and mask your IP from the websites you visit.
Benefits
With these simple benefits they are pretty extraordinary. Though there are a few things that you do want to take note of.
Most VPN companies actually LOG the websites that you visit
Your ISP also LOGs the websites that you visit
Downloading Copyrighted Data or Pirating illegal data can get your VPN account that you paid for banned, and with a consequence of that you can be under the same consequences that your VPN company and ISP will pass along to the government in your country.
Only 1 company called Private Internet Access truly does not log user data and does not answer to government entities.
They have a special protocol for allowing normal internet activity NOT to be slowed down by the process of transferring data packets for all content to there servers with emulating you being in a different country or faraway server which is a really awesome benefit.
Using a VPN is very useful in a sense of kind of being anonymous to a certain degree even tho the VPN is the identity of using someone else's internet for loading and receiving data for what ever website you visit.
Preventing viruses comes down to the use of the user from clicking on or not clicking on the right link or let a hidden pop up window download something in the background and enabling auto run within the browser.
The ultimate easiest way to negate 80% of most toxic content from the internet is using an extension like Ublock Origin.
Honeypot
The was an Android application called " Free P*** VPN" this was actually a FBI/Police Sting operation to capture pedophiles and downloading CSAM type of data. This was a pretty huge bust and was successful in catching a good amount of criminals who where silly enough to believe that a free VPN was going to actually protect and hide there data from there ISP.
It ain't free
All "Free" VPNs aren't free at all, they are created with the intent to harvest user data by the websites that you visit and the sell it to advertiser agencies.
Any and all websites that you visit requires bandwidth essentially so there's computers that are running 24/7 to keep everything operational essentially.
Internet Service Providers
ISP monitor your every move on the internet. They are paid millions of dollars to fund the use monitoring users who browse the internet.
Where does this money come from? Well theres a company called BSP that is a Software Alliance run as a non profit company for Anti Piracy measures. So while your legitimately paying for Adobe, Microsoft any and all software you pay for is going to this company. BSP have made 30 million dollars alone in 2019 for settlements that have paid off greatly. Adobe & Microsoft have paid BSP 10 million dollars in membership dues so that the process of tracking users who browse the web are being taken action against any sort sort of shady activity that is found. The leader of all of this whole operation is Victoria Espinel and what does she like to do? pay herself 2 million dollars annually. Up until 2013 her main job was Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator for the United States White House. While her time at the White House she was getting internet service providers large software companies and media conglomerates to work together to force in strict copyright policies like the six strike rule which allows isps to monitor your internet behavior.
So if your ISP is monitoring all the sites that you go to then that means that if your own ISP that you might be paying $50 - $70 for then if they feel like it they can make your life and absolute living hell if they felt like it, and or ban you from ever using the internet on any device you use. - Source for this ISP section of information
I personally would feel 10X times better using a VPN 24/7 if that menet that my usage of it wasn't being tracked and linked back to something.
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