[Bravo]

Hey, guys, I'm new. I feel obliged to say that, just cuz, I dunno, a disclaimer, I guess?

Anyways, I had a few quick questions, in regard to Anonymity through the use of VPNs. I use Tor, and have since my first forays into hacking (or the learning thereof). Since coming to the site--that is, viewing a few times, and registering today-- I learned that Tor isn't as good as it's cracked up to be? Well, I was told to check out VPNs. So, my questions:

1.) Tor: howso is it not as good as it is made out to be?

2.) VPNs: How do they work? What do they accomplish?

3.) How good are they at disguising your identity?

4.) How readily-available are they, in general? Will I be able to get one for free, or will I have to dish out some money?

5.) Finally, which one(s) would you recommend?

[unknownAttacker]

1. TOR is slow and it can be broken, although not easily
2. VPN tunnels your connection through a simulated (virtual) private network or LAN. using VPNs just for the sake of anonymity is quite similar to using proxies or SSH tunneling. when connected to VPN, all the traffic is tunneled and only set ports are forwarded (configured either by vendor or by you) so you don't configure other programs to run through VPN and you're more secure from stuff like trojans
3. better than proxies, also faster. even your ISP doesn't know what sites you visited. if the server doesn't keep logs (and there are ones that don't) and your computer doesn't have malware, you won't get caught.
4. there are free ones and there are paid ones. free ones are less reliable and have a history of fucking hackers over (HideMyAss ratted out LulzSec, for example). if you want a fast and secure VPN and don't mind paying, search for those that use Open VPN protocol and either have open-source clients or give you info that allows you to use a different client (so you'll know there are no backdoors) and don't keep server logs.
5. I reccommend AirVPN, it's reliable, quite fast and has made a point of not giving your info to anyone. also, they have useful features like configurable port forwarding.