OK, so, I have a couple of questions:
- What’s the worst that can happen if I don’t use a VPN while pirating?
- Are free tier VPNs (like Proton VPN) good enough?
- I don’t want to pay much or anything for a VPN, is a way I can get a good free one, or set one myself somehow (I have experience with selfhosting) ?
- If not, which cheap one do you recommend?
EDIT: I pirate mostly movies, and rarely some TV series.
Depends on how hard your country cracks down on individual piracy. If you’ve heard a friend of yours in the same country being served a copyright notice for pirating; you absolutely need a VPN. If you’ve never heard of this and the idea sounds impossible, you typically won’t need it.
If you will need a VPN; I would heavily recommend Proton VPN for convenience. If you want to selfhost you’re going to need a server in a different country which will still cost you money. Assuming you’ll pay for a typical sbc + gigabit internet + electricity costs + remote maintenance costs and you’ll be looking at a way bigger cost than just 60 euros a year. That’s how much ProtonVPN costs.