I hate to be that guy, but the vast majority of people using "VPN"s are actually using Proxies. A VPN connects a laptop at starbucks to a printer at the office

I hate to be that guy, but the vast majority of people using "VPN"s are actually using Proxies. A VPN connects a laptop at starbucks to a printer at the office so you can print something. A Proxy forwards requests on your behalf to web servers and returns results. Modern VPNs are marketed as such because people love the "P" part without realizing that... they already had that with SSL.