“Anything that goes through any Common Carrier can be filtered or silenced. (Or watched.)”
how effective is a vpn in regard to what you wrote?
simplified old school descriptions
VPN... Virtual Private network
a program sets up a connection between you and the VPN host server means that your data still goes through like before but it now is encrypted untill it goes out from the VPN server to here.
Your provider only sees your connected, he does not see what your doing.
Your data IS being seen by the VPN server going from it to here.
safe, no as you still send your data in the clear from the VPN to here, all this does and it is good is stops your provider from seeing who and what your talking to or about.
TOR
An encryption connection program - THIS IS HARDER to set up and run. all connections to the servers is encrypted, BUT it is like VPN, as soon as that data goes from its last server to here it is unencrypted and clearly readable.
If you do not know we can help you, if you are worried about how to or what program we can use than ask.
I cannot fill books worth of info on here this was a simple way of showing what people are talking about.
You are NOT alone...
Blessings.