With all those tools available, security professionals still agree that adding a VPN to your list of privacy tools is a great way to protect yourself. Some people use ad blockers, privacy conscious browsers, and a bunch of extensions. If you already know the address of the site you want, like, typing that in your address bar will take you straight to that address, but it’s still a DNS request that your ISP could see. It’s important to know, encrypted DNS isn’t the same thing as a private search engine. If you’re using TunnelBear, we use encrypted DNS servers, so your address requests are protected. VPN won’t block cookies, but they will confuse the data the cookies report back because the owner of the cookie will think you’re in a different place. VPN replace your IP address, one of the primary ways the internet knows who you are, where you’re connecting from and what you’re doing as you move around the internet. VPN help protect your privacy by removing the direct connections to the personal browsing information companies use to track you. That's a lot of cookies for "private browsing" How do VPN protect my privacy? Until that happens, all of that information is still being sent and recieved by websites through your ISP, so everyone in that chain can see what you're doing. The best feature of private browsing is that it will delete all of these cookies when the browser window is closed. In the image below, you can see all of the cookies that I picked up on one heavily monetized website. Isolating the browser is supposed to help block websites from seeing who you are, block cookies and prevent access to your browsing history, but even when using private browsing, the EFF's Panopticlick privacy test could see what device I was on, where I was connecting, if I could accept cookies, my OS, and tonne of other personally identifying information. With private browsing, your browser window is isolated from the rest of your operating system. Websites use this information to serve you relavent ads, but it can also be used to track your location and browsing habits. Without private browsing, your browser tells websites–and their owners–all kinds of things about you like what device you're using, where you are, what sites you've visited and when. Private browsing mode doesn’t obscure or protect any of your information as it leaves your device. On top of that, your data is still visible to ISP, advertisers and network monitors. But, and this is a big BUT, your searches, site history and cookies are can all still be saved if you've logged into your Google account. What that note says is, your browser won’t keep local records of your searches, files that you download, site history or session data you create. Note: If you sign in to your Google Account to use a web service like Gmail, your searches and browsing activity might be saved to your account. You might see search results and suggestions based on your location or other searches you’ve done during your current browsing session.Cookies are deleted after you close your private browsing window or tab.
PRIVATE BROWSER WITH VPN DOWNLOAD
Files you download or bookmarks you create might be kept on your device.The searches you do or sites you visit won’t be saved to your device or browsing history.There's no comparison between the two, but to clear up the “Incognito vs VPN” debate, let’s take a look at how private browsing modes work, and why comparing them to VPN is like comparing apples to basketballs. If you want to protect the information that moves through your device, then what you really want is a VPN. Private browsing is a great feature on shared devices, like a workstation or a school computer, but if you aren’t sharing a device with anyone, private browsing isn't protecting your privacy. The reality is, private browsing only protects you from other people sharing your device. It makes sense, they're called “private browsing”, what else should they do? Well, if you've read the news lately, you may have seen that Google is in a $5 billion lawsuit specifically because of their private browsing mode.
![private browser with vpn private browser with vpn](https://www.fossmint.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Epic-Privacy-Browser.png)
There’s a common misconception that “private browsing” modes–like Incognito–protect your online privacy.