If you are looking to download only VIP plugin and not planning on downloading any more resource from hlmod, then you may not require to have hlmod verified/paid account. You can also get VIP and it's modules (not all modules) from any third party websites (For example,
here). But they are not guaranteed to work as expected, as those resource may be modified by other authors.
And sourcemod plugins are not OS specific. Means same plugin files will work on both Linux and Windows.
At last, I would say 10$ hlmod account is definitely worth it. You get access to wide range of plugins and topics.