Online anonymity: what does a VPN really give you?
“Anonymous VPN” shows up in a lot of adverts, and it’s a stretch. A VPN hides a fair amount, but not everything, and it moves your trust from your internet provider to the VPN company. Here’s where the line actually is.
What a VPN hides
Mainly your IP address. Websites see the VPN server’s address, so they can’t tell who your provider is or roughly where you live. Since many people share the same server at once, it’s also harder to link your visits across different sites.
It also hides your traffic from whoever sits in the middle. Your provider, the network admin at work or the hotel Wi-Fi owner only see an encrypted connection to one server. They don’t know which sites you visit or what you send.
What still gives you away
Accounts, first of all. Logged in to Google, Facebook or an online shop, you are you, whatever your IP address. Cookies stored in your browser work the same way and survive a change of VPN server.
Less obvious is browser fingerprinting. Screen resolution, installed fonts, system version and dozens of other small details together form a combination that can be unique. And then there’s what you share yourself: photos, posts, the phone number you signed up with.
Who you’re trusting
Your internet provider stops seeing your traffic, but the VPN provider technically could. So the key question when choosing a service is whether it keeps activity logs. A promise on the homepage isn’t enough. A few things are worth checking:
- whether the provider has had its no-logs policy independently audited and published the results,
- whether servers run in RAM only, like ExpressVPN’s TrustedServer, so nothing survives a reboot,
- where the company is based. Proton VPN is in Switzerland, Mullvad in Sweden and NordVPN in Panama,
- how much personal data you have to hand over. Mullvad doesn’t even ask for an email and accepts cash.
We list the headquarters of every service we compare on the VPN providers page.
Practical steps
A VPN with a verified no-logs policy and the kill switch turned on is a good start. Add a browser that blocks trackers, and for searches you don’t want tied to your account, use a separate profile or a private window with nothing logged in. You can set cookies to clear when you close the browser. On your phone, check which apps can see your location. It’s usually the most valuable thing we give away.
Privacy isn’t suspicious
Wanting to protect your data is as normal as locking your front door. Journalists, lawyers, businesses and millions of ordinary people use VPNs because they’d rather their activity wasn’t a product. If you’re looking for one, check the VPN map to see who has servers where you need them.