If the free VPN provides an OpenVPN / Wireguard configuration, then you’re mostly safe from this particular attack. Most sites use TLS, so the VPN provider won’t be able to see shit.
In this particular case, it’s a browser extension, which is actually able to access the contents of visited webpages.
pedos who “date” 17-year-olds
Stop watering down the term. Yucky? Sure. Pedophile? No.
Pedophilia (alternatively spelled paedophilia) is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Although girls typically begin the process of puberty at age 10 or 11, and boys at age 11 or 12, psychiatric diagnostic criteria for pedophilia extend the cut-off point for prepubescence to age 13.
Emphasis mine. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedophilia.
I’m mostly surprised that there are companies interested in “conversations” between
bullshit generatorsLLMs and mentally unwell people that “converse” with them.