openVPN is also an application providing VPN functionality that can be used with a VPN provider, where openSUSE Leap currently uses version 2.3.8.
Some links
My personal opinion is, wrt privacy it depends on whom one is defending against. A VPN is good to protect against an average hacker, but it won’t protect one if they are in the ‘sights’ of a capable government organization (nor IMHO should they).
An application such as openVPN, will encrypt one’s traffic, including the IP where one is to surf, between one’s PC and the VPN server. However the instance the traffic leaves the VPN server, the traffic is back to its nominal state. If it is nominally unencrypted traffic, then it can be read, and of course the IP of the VPN server and also the IP of the site would be read regardless after the traffic leaves the VPN server.
Typically the VPN provider from its logs will know your IP and when you connect, and it will know the IP where you connect to. Some VPN providers claim they don’t keep keep log files, but take that with lots of grains of salt, as noted in a recent slashdot.org article where a VPN provider that advertises no log files, in fact kept some that they passed to the government to catch someone bad. In some countries the governments require the VPN providers to keep logs, so if the VPN providers do not keep such, they are breaking the law - so as noted, their claims of no log files from such countries should be taken with caution. Hence some people look for VPN providers based outside the countries with such laws requiring logs to be kept.
Further, not all VPNs provide the protection they advertise and one might hope. Read this article in Wired. One can have a VPN setup but have an IP leak. Not all VPNs will route IPv6 and hence even thou one’s IPv4 traffic is being routed via the VPN, one’s IPv6 traffic may be going direct outside of the VPN giving away one’s identity.
In addition, some Governments do not like their citizens using VPN, and they have laws against such and they block the VPN, often by IP blocking, port blocking, or Deep Packet Inspection to detect the VPN traffic or stop the VPN traffic.
Having typed that, if one is an a Hotel room or public location using the unencrypted wifi to connect to the internet, then one is very vulnerable to an average hacker, and using a VPN is a good start at adding some protection against the average hacker. Using a VPN in this scenario means one’s traffic from one’s PC to the VPN server, is likely out of reach of the average hacker, and hence one is safe from such.
Further, don’t go do something illegal with a VPN, as government resources are much larger than that of the average hacker, and with or without a VPN provider’s support, if one is in the Government’s sights, one can typically be tracked down and what one is surfing can be determined.
I use a VPN for protection in Hotel room / public spaces. My view is to restrict one’s use of a VPN for legal activity such as that.