VPN. Always VPN. Don't trust the local network. A Digital Ocean droplet is only $5 a month so for most of the readers here there's no excuse for not using a VPN.
Even my home network can't be trusted. Comcast hijacks DNS request to third party DNS servers.
I trust Digital Ocean more than Comcast. And when I say trust, the trust part is that I trust Digital Ocean to deliver a service without playing silly games. Not that I trust Digital Ocean to keep my data private because at the end of the day you can't hide from agencies.
Using a Digital Ocean droplet as a VPN is probably the same as driving to Fort Meade monthly and handing them a hard drive with your full upload and download streams for the month, but using an unknown provider from LEB feels like handing out 2 drives: one for no such agency, another for some guy with a lot less data to sift through, thus a greater disposition to look at my data.
Even my home network can't be trusted. Comcast hijacks DNS request to third party DNS servers.