VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) have been pushed hard as the be-all and end-all of personal online security. While VPNs have their place, they aren’t the panacea you might believe. There are several situations in which a VPN might not protect your privacy, even when you may have expected it to.
VPNs Don’t Make You Completely Invisible Online
While a VPN might mask your IP address from the site you’re connecting to, and also mask what site you’re visiting from your service provider, it’s not a cloak of invisibility. First, both the website and your ISP probably know that you’re using a VPN, and they also know the time and session length of your visit. Second, your actual activity on those sites can easily reveal your identity, since there are cookies on your local system, and if you log in to any accounts then obviously the target site knows who you are.
The only thing the VPN does is obscure your IP address, your location, and which site you’re visiting to outside observers. Beyond that, it doesn’t prevent any of the other typical ways someone’s identity is determined online.
All VPNs Are Not the Same
There’s a reason we have to do a VPN review roundup every year. VPNs broadly use the same technology, but they vary dramatically when it comes to the implementation of that technology. Some VPN services keep logs of your activities, others might have bugs that cause information to leak to your ISP. Some VPNs are in regions where the privacy laws are weak. There are numerous factors to consider, and you should not assume that just because you’re using some sort of VPN, you’re automatically getting the best protection.
VPNs Can’t Bypass All Geographic Restrictions
VPNs are useful for making it look like you’re in a different location than your true one. Some people value this for privacy reasons, and others use this feature to access content that’s geographically restricted. The thing is, this doesn’t always work. There are many ways for a target server to figure out you’re spoofing your location, though the most common method is to simply keep a black list of common VPN server IP addresses. This is how many streaming providers detect VPN use and send you a message telling you to turn your VPN off if you want to keep watching.
The only way around this is to use a VPN service that offers private IP addresses (for extra money), which means the servers can’t tell the difference between that VPN server IP and any regular user.
VPNs Don’t Always Keep You Safe From Government Surveillance
VPNs are a lifeline for many people in the world who live in countries where their government might not be the biggest fans of free speech. VPN technology allows people in those countries to communicate with outsiders, or to access websites that are blocked by their government. However, VPNs themselves may be illegal, or you may only be allowed to use approved VPNs that will share their information with the government.
Moreover, ISPs and by extension those governments will know that you are using a VPN and which VPN it is. Which means you can’t rely on a VPN alone to keep your comings and goings secret. Instead, you’ll have to use tools like TOR, TAILS, and virtual machines to further obscure your identity and actions.
Free VPNs Are Not As Good as Paid Ones
Free VPNs need to make money somehow, and whether that’s through advertising or selling your information to a third-party, it’s not great from a privacy standpoint. They aren’t great for geo-unblocking either, since while they might let you bypass a location check, they usually don’t offer the sort of bandwidth you need to stream or download anything. Unless it’s a privacy-focused free VPN from a trusted player like Google, you should probably steer clear.
VPNs Don’t Prevent Ads and Tracking Completely
Unless it’s a VPN that also includes an ad-blocking feature as an extra, then you’re not going to win any privacy points when it comes to advertising. Ad tracking happens using local data stored in your browser such as cookies, and these tracking cookies can track you across sites. At best, you might be served ads that are for the region your VPN is, but they’ll still be targeting you properly in terms of the ad type. Also, based on your existing tracking data, it would be easy to figure out where you’re really from.
You’d have to combine the VPN with private browsing modes, or a privacy-focused browser like Brave for this to be effective, and honestly, the VPN isn’t even necessary if ad-tracking is your primary concern.
While I still recommend that everyone have a VPN as part of their overall privacy toolkit, you should never assume that a VPN by itself is enough, or believe that it will protect you from things it was never designed to do!
