VPN:
- Will protect you from companies like your ISP or 'busted' public hotspots from snooping on all the sites you visit on the internet
- Free VPN means the VPN host is paying money for you to surf the web, and the people hosting the VPN can see all that you are doing if they are so inclined
- You can get logless, IP sharing VPN's that are the ideal situation, and many advertise this feature, but there's really no way of confirming
- There is zero doubt in my head that nation-states own all traffic anywhere so if you plan on assassinating a major figurehead, don't rely on VPN
- Will not protect you from poor internet hygiene, ie: Installing hot-porn.exe or going to www.freesexyladieswhowanttomeetme.com
- The bigger VPN companies will have exit gateways all over the globe which is handy for a variety of reasons
I use privateinternetaccess.
For browsing I use uBlock and NoScript. The latter requires a lot of work but it is so worth it.