Opinions on VPNs?

[Monty]

I keep my "surfing" to relatively safe sites (TTBOMK) such as hobbies, cars and politics.  Over the years I haven't had a whole lot to be concerned about until about a week ago when an email showed up referencing my name and a couple other things that made me nervous.  

Knowing virtually nothing about computers etc, I was wondering if getting a VPN might prevent more of this kind of thing.  

[MeatMan]

7 hours ago, Monty said:

I keep my "surfing" to relatively safe sites (TTBOMK) such as hobbies, cars and politics.  Over the years I haven't had a whole lot to be concerned about until about a week ago when an email showed up referencing my name and a couple other things that made me nervous.  

Knowing virtually nothing about computers etc, I was wondering if getting a VPN might prevent more of this kind of thing.  

I use a VPN and it does protect you from people knowing where you are located, but I don't think they will provide the kind of protections you mention here.
Also, with all of the breaches and hacks that have happened your email address may be out on the dark web, like one of mine.
I use Duck Duck Go browser with the Privacy Badger extension. It keeps you from being tracked on most sites and deletes your cookies when you close it. That might be a better option.

[stitchdup]

just click to mark the email as spam and carry on with your life. you can find out if your email address was part of a hack by using   https://haveibeenpwned.com/

you just put your email address into it and it will tell if it was part of a hack and what data they have on you. it even tells you if they got passwords. it wont stop you getting spam emails but it will tell you if passwords need changed