you really need to have absolute trust in the VPN provider to do this, but in some countries it's better to have a VPN before Tor, than Tor on its own only I guess. I mean, I can easily imagine some places on earth where some internet or data providers shouldn't know that you are using Tor network
Absolute trust in centralized VPN provider?
- No thank you, absolute trust is (almost) never a good thing.
When contemplating the integration of a VPN alongside Tor, the utmost priority is to select a dependable VPN provider that adheres to rigorous privacy standards. It's vital to ensure that the VPN provider refrains from logging user activities, provides payment options that are difficult to trace, and maintains a strong commitment to user privacy. Opting for payment methods like Bitcoin can contribute to a more secure setup, particularly when using mixed Bitcoins to enhance anonymity and prevent tracking.
However good some VPN providers may appear to be, most of them claim how they never store any logs, but I don't trust them, especially if they are based in some of the 5, 9 or 14 Eyes countries.
In case government seize their servers they will have access to everything that was visited by all users, including original IP address and Tor usage.
We can argue that most VPN providers are junk used to collect user information, with maybe only few exceptions like Mullvad.
