No third party VPN and that includes Express VPN, Nord VPN, Proton VPN and the rest are reliable, fast and offer decent amount of security, because they are third party. They can all make all kinds of claims that they are reliable, secure, fast and best in security, but we are just taking their word. You haven't met them in person, know where they are located building and personally inspected their network gear. All we just do is just take their word for it in faith. Faith is just as good as if you believe Jesus does walk on water. That's all that is good for.
Certainly, having some security is better than none. Network security is a sum of all parts and that is, your router, your devices and what are you doing on the net. People don't realize that most consumer routers can be easily compromised or taken over by malware because most of them rarely have their firmware upgraded often and can be hacked. The ones provided by your ISP had already been hacked and you probably don't even know it! With a software VPN, you can circumvent this hack, but seriously once you turn off the VPN, all the data that passed through your router will be re-routed to the hackers. So having Opera in this case is better than browsing with Chrome, Safari or Edge. And then you have devices like computers, tablets and phones that may no longer receive updates. They too are liable to be hacked and you don't even know it. Having VPN or not is pointless when your devices are hacked and you don't have the means to test whether it is hacked or not. because a hacked device CAN CIRCUMVENT software VPN. The only exception is when you connect to a hardware VPN that is hardware linked site to site. But we are talking commercial grade CISCO or PEPLINK units that are costing far beyond what a consumer will be willing to pay to own.
And then your browsing habits dictate how often you will get hacked. If you routinely browse porn sites, download torrents and stream from some Russian streaming sites again watching some porn or some free latest movies, then you are asking to be hacked. As these sites don't provide free stuff for nothing. They provide these to lure you into a trap, like a venus fly trap and see what gear your have connected and then start to compromise your system. How do you think many of the corporations' system get hacked when they had good commercial grade security. They get hacked because the employees bypass the commercial grade security and install their own stuff so they can view sites that are off-limits. Then this creates a hole in the security network for the hackers to infiltrate. It always starts with a free lure to get you to the site and then they can hack into your system. So if you don't go to those sites, then you won't get hacked!
Having said that, having VPN is useful when your needs are to protect your privacy and that you belong to some advocacy group that some governments ban the movement of information and VPN helps with that. But if it is used to get free movies, software, music and what not, then that's when security will be compromised.
