Virtual Private Networks VPNs Protecting Your Privacy Online

How does a VPN protect your privacy and anonymity?

It's no secret nowadays that the Internet is no more than a tap away, and while that's great for productivity and entertainment, it can prove a problem for those who prefer to stay private and secure. Cookies are installed in the background when you visit a website, advertisers serve us ads based on our browser history, and our ISP knows which sites weve visited. Only one of the best VPN services can help.

And, it goes far deeper than that. There are voicebots like Google Assistant that keep a record of every voice command we've ever made. Unless you opt-out on purpose, Google also keeps a record of your website visits.

It's also worth remembering that these are the legal, well-known services keeping tabs on us. It doesnt include the illegal spying networks and government surveillance programs we dont know about. These days, its not a stretch to say we're never alone online.

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Using a VPN as a solution

While its true that Google and Amazon record what you say and track website visits, and that Facebook is well-known for serving ads that match what we search and what we do online, that doesnt have to be the case. A VPN (short for Virtual Private Network) provides the security, privacy, and anonymity we all crave when were online.

You could argue that VPNs have a bad name in some circles. Connecting in a secure and anonymous way does protect some nefarious individuals who are transmitting illegal software, copyrighted movies, and other more sinister illicit material. However, that view of a VPN is completely false.

Many VPN users are protecting their online activity and transmissions for business reasons. In fact, the VPN as we know it started in the business world to help remote workers connect to corporate networks in a secure way roughly 15 years ago, and business VPN services are just as popular in the 2020s.

For the average consumer, though, a VPN is a godsend. It means you can access your own files and media from any location in the world, securely and privately, and also allows you to unblock geo-restricted streaming services, avoid governmental censorship, and torrent in safety.

Essentially, you can visit websites without an overlord watching what you do. When you use a VPN, its much harder for advertisers to track your website visits. In general, the two most important benefits of a VPN have to do with privacy and anonymity. Heres how that works.

Protecting your privacy

Privacy is not always a given when youre online. In fact, its usually a taken. Advertisers, social media networks, and apps routinely track who you are, what you're doing, and even where you live. If you connect in New York and start browsing for a new apartment, you'll almost certainly start seeing ads for rental services in your area. Its like clockwork.

A VPN makes it impossible to track your location. By using a service like ExpressVPN or NordVPN, you essentially obscure your location from advertisers. Lets say you connect from an Android phone using a VPN from New York.You can select the country you want to use for your VPN connection and even the city. If you select the United Kingdom and then pick London, your ISP wont report the IP location of your local connection.

• There are more VPN uses than you might think...

That obscured location makes it impossible for advertisers to serve ads based on where you live. And, the profile that advertisers create and we know they create profiles for every website you visit will be incorrect. To the ad networks and website owners, your IP address wont match the location from where you are connecting.

That can be surprisingly freeing dont have to think about someone spying on your online activity or serving ads, you dont have to worry about anyone building a profile about you and what you like to do or the sites you like to visit. Of course, there are also benefits in terms of personal security, because the VPN also encrypts the connection.

From a business standpoint, employees who are working on projects and coordinating business plans can be sure they are not being watched or tracked online.

There are times when you might be transmitting financial records, credit card information, and other materials and do not need to wonder if another party has access to those files or those records.

Protecting your anonymity

A VPN also protects your anonymity. This is a slightly different term than privacy. It means you are completely anonymous. When you visit websites or purchase products, when you stream movies or download television shows, its one thing to be private in the sense that no one can track what you do.

However, anonymity goes one step further. Not only are you safe from being watched and tracked, but your identity is also safe. No one can see what you are doing online (thats privacy) and no one will know who you are or where you live (thats anonymity).

Its a curious distinction because combined together, it does give you a sense of protection and security from all of the ways your online activity can be tracked. In terms of surveillance, what you transmit is safe and who is doing the transmitting is also safe.

This includes everything about you your gender, your location, your private information such as an address and home phone, your email, your social media footprint...

Cookies used to track personally identifiable information wont know your location, and the VPN encrypts the transmission of data so that your ISP cant track it.

Being anonymous online has several advantages. Once you establish the VPN connection and obscure your location, you can then use other security measures to protect your identity. One of the most common is secure email. If you are conducting financial information, a secure email sent over a VPN protects that data from anyone.

The message itself is encrypted as is the connection you use to send it. Only the recipient who must either enter a passcode or even visit the secure email portal to retrieve the message can open your message.

Overall, a VPN provides a level of security, privacy, and anonymity to make your web travels safer and give you the peace of mind that you are not being tracked at all times.

What is a VPN and why do you need one? All your virtual private network questions answered

We've already discussed the use of a VPN when connecting offices. Any time you have two LANs that need to link over the public internet, you should consider using VPN technology or an equivalent method of enterprise protection. In this case, the VPN software will probably run in a router, a server, or a dedicated VPN server hardware appliance.

We talked about two use cases above for consumer VPN services: protecting your data and spoofing your location. We'll talk more about location spoofing later, so let's focus on data protection for now.

Also: The best travel VPNs of 2024

When you're away from home or the office, and you connect to the internet, you'll most often be doing so via Wi-Fi provided by your hotel or the restaurant, library, or coffee shop you're working out of at that moment. Sometimes, Wi-Fi has a password. Other times, it will be completely open. In either case, you have no idea who else is accessing that network. Therefore, you have no idea who might be snooping on your internet traffic, browsing history, or online activity.

I recommend always using a VPN when using someone else's Wi-Fi network. Here's a good rule of thumb: if you're away from the office or home, and you're using someone else's Wi-Fi (even that of a family member or a friend, because you never know if they've been compromised), use a VPN. It's particularly important if you're accessing a service that has personally identifying information. Remember, a lot goes on behind the scenes, and you never really know if one or more of your apps are authenticating in the background and putting your information at risk.

Another reason you might choose to use a VPN is if you have something to hide, which isn't just about folks doing things they shouldn't do. Sometimes people really need to hide information. Take, for example, the person who is worried an employer might discriminate against them because of their sexual orientation or medical condition. Another example is a person who needs to go online, but is concerned about revealing location information to a person in their life who might be a threat.

And then, of course, there are those people in restrictive countries who need to hide their activity merely to gain access to the internet without potentially grave penalties.

For Internet Privacy, VPNs Are an Imperfect Shield

When Congress voted to overturn online privacy rules last week, Steve Wilmot, a Los Angeles songwriter, reacted like many worried consumers: He looked into signing up for a technology service known as a virtual private network, or VPN.

The online privacy rules, which were set to go into effect this year and which President Trump fully repealed on Monday, would have required broadband providers like Comcast and Charter to get permission from customers before selling their browsing history to advertisers. Without restrictions, the companies can track and sell peoples information with greater ease.

A VPN was a natural service to consider in response. Thats because the technology creates a virtual tunnel that shields your browsing information from your internet service provider. So Mr. Wilmot researched VPNs in hopes of protecting his own browsing data.

I dont really want anybody to have any sort of access to what Im looking at, he said. If anyone is going to profit off my privacy, Id prefer it to be me.

But while VPNs are worth considering, they are an incomplete and flawed solution. For one thing, they often slow down internet speeds significantly. Some apps and services may also stop working properly when you are connected to a virtual network.

Still, VPNs are among several tools for better protecting your digital privacy. Heres an overview of the pros and cons, based on tests of VPN services and interviews with security experts.

Why go with a VPN?

When you browse the web, a broadband provider helps route your devices internet traffic to each destination website. Each device you use has an identifier consisting of a string of numbers, also known as an IP address. When you are on the internet, a service provider can see which devices you use and which sites you visit.

VPNs help cloak your browsing information from your internet provider. When you use VPN software, your device connects to a VPN providers servers. That way, all your web traffic passes through the VPN providers internet connection. So if your internet provider was trying to listen in on your web traffic, all it would see is the VPN servers IP address connected to the VPN service.

We provide you an encrypted tunnel from you to us, said Sean Sullivan, a security adviser for F-Secure, a Finland-based company that offers a VPN called Freedome.

VPNs are especially handy when you are connecting to a public Wi-Fi network with which you arent familiar. For example, when you use public Wi-Fi at a cafe, airport or hotel, its often unclear who the service provider is and what its data collection policies entail. In this scenario, a VPN is highly recommended.

VPNs also have the ability to make it appear as though your device is connecting from a different location. So if you are in Europe, traveling to Spain from France, and want to stream content that is only viewable in France, you could connect to a VPN server whose IP address is in France.

Does a VPN have any downsides?

VPN services have their downsides, and the biggest one is speed degradation. Because your internet traffic passes through a VPN providers connection, you will likely see a dip in broadband performance.

Speeds will vary depending on the VPN providers infrastructure. In my tests with a Mac, download speeds dropped about 85 percent after connecting to F-Secures Freedome VPN service, and by 50 percent when connected to another VPN service called Private Internet Access. In other words, if you are downloading large files over a VPN, it will take much longer to accomplish those tasks.

Another drawback is that VPN services cost money. F-Secure charges $4.17 a month to use its service for a year on three devices, and Private Internet Access charges $6.95 per month or $40 a year on five devices. Thats not a lot of money, but broadband service is generally expensive, and tacking on a few extra dollars a month to use the internet more privately can be annoying.

In addition, some services may not work properly on a VPN. Netflix often blocks them to keep people from streaming content that is not licensed for their regions. In tests with Freedome and Private Internet Access, I tried connecting to a server in Mexico to stream the catalog of Netflix movies available there. With both VPN services, Netflix detected I was using a VPN and prevented movies from playing.

For VPN providers, this is a known issue. F-Secures Mr. Sullivan said that when services like Netflix block VPNs, they are probably putting up a fight for Hollywood.

Which VPNs are worth a try?

There are hundreds of VPNs on the market, and vetting them can be overwhelming.

Runa Sandvik, a director of information security for The New York Times, said that consumers should be scrupulous about reading privacy policies and selecting a VPN they can trust. Thats because a VPN service is also tied to an internet service provider, meaning a VPN provider could share your information with the service provider if it wanted to do so.

With that in mind, Ms. Sandvik highlighted F-Secures Freedome as a trustworthy VPN provider. The Wirecutter, a product recommendations site owned by The Times, picked Private Internet Access because it has the hallmarks of a trustworthy service, available at a low cost.

Based on those recommendations, I tried Private Internet Access and Freedome for my tests. Both products were easy to use: Just install an app on your smartphone, computer or tablet and hit a button to connect to a server. In the end, I preferred Private Internet Access because of its faster speeds.

Whats the VPN bottom line?

All things considered, VPN is only a partial solution for keeping your browsing data private.

Even if you hide your activities from your internet provider, web companies like Facebook and Google can use tracking technologies like cookies, which contain unique alphanumeric identification tags, to identify your activities as you move from site to site. Beyond that, web trackers often lurk inside ads.

The real problem is ads are dangerous, said Jeremiah Grossman, the head of security strategy for SentinelOne, a computer security company. Theyre fully functioning programs and they carry malware.

If you are truly concerned about keeping your web browsing history private, Mr. Grossman recommended using a combination of a VPN and an ad blocker. His ad blocker of choice is uBlock Origin, a free piece of software. For those who would prefer not to block ads, there are tracker blockers as well my favorite is Disconnect.

With VPNs, most people would probably be better off using them when it seems necessary and turning them off when they are not needed. The slowdown in speed is the biggest negative and makes constant use impractical.

Many people would probably benefit from using a VPN in certain situations, like when they are connected to a public Wi-Fi network or are browsing sensitive websites. But for watching Netflix or sending emails with large attachments? Turn the VPN off.

For Mr. Wilmot, the Los Angeles musician, the slow speeds of internet downloading spurred by VPNs were a dealbreaker. In the end, he opted against getting one at all.

If I dont have lightning-fast internet 24 hours a day, it inhibits my workflow and affects deadlines, he said. I think Im accidentally relaxing into that kind of What can you do? mentality. Theres no good option.