A VPN does protect your website visits, the apps you use for streaming, and even if you run a personal media server. Once you hand this information over, a VPN can’t protect you from being tracked and hounded with ads. However, it has nothing to with purposefully typing in data into web forms, for your website login, or even things like filling out a survey where the site operator asks for your city name.

A VPN protects the actual connection and your IP address, which is provided by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Websites use cookies that track what you do and which sections of a site you visit.Īll of this is obscured with a VPN, but there's one important point to mention here: If you do log in to a website or type in location information, a credit card, a physical address, or any other personally identifiable information, a VPN won’t help at all. User profiles are incredibly common, especially when it comes to social media platforms. However, they do build a user profile based on your IP address so they can determine which products you like, which videos you stream, and also your general location – say, that you live in downtown Seattle, or Oldham in Manchester. Websites don’t actually know your name and address – unless you type that into a web-based form or register for a site. Now, a little more of an explanation can help.

Learn about the vast range of VPN uses in our guide.

How does a VPN protect your privacy and anonymity?.

Free server software makes u invisible