No. A VPN hides your IP address, not who you are: the accounts you log in to, cookies and your browser setup still identify you.
What solves it instead
- Log out of the accounts you do not want linked to what you do, or use a separate browser profile for them: what you do while logged in stays tied to that account.
- Clear your cookies or block third-party cookies in your browser settings, so sites have less to recognise you by.
- You need real anonymity, for example as a source for a journalist: Tor Browser is built for that. A VPN is not.
The facts
| About | Word for word from the source | Source, checked on |
|---|---|---|
| What EU law counts as an online identifier | Natural persons may be associated with online identifiers provided by their devices, applications, tools and protocols, such as internet protocol addresses, cookie identifiers or other identifiers such as radio frequency identification tags. | eur-lex.europa.eu, |
| What those traces allow | This may leave traces which, in particular when combined with unique identifiers and other information received by the servers, may be used to create profiles of the natural persons and identify them. | eur-lex.europa.eu, |
| What a VPN provider says itself | VPNs don’t give you full anonymity, but what they do give you is enhanced privacy. | windscribe.com, |
| When you are logged in | Online accounts are tied to your identity, so anything you do while logged in can be traced back to you. | windscribe.com, |
| Your browser and device | A VPN can’t change your device characteristics, so even if you hide your IP, your browser setup can still be used to track you. | windscribe.com, |
What a VPN does change
A VPN shows the sites you visit the address of its server instead of yours, and encrypts your traffic so the network you are on only sees the connection to that server. The VPN provider can then see what your network used to see. That gives you more privacy towards your network and the sites you visit; it does not make you anonymous. Check when a VPN is worth paying for
Without a VPN
- You
- Your networkinternet provider, or the Wi-Fi of work, school or a café
Sees: which sites you visit and when. With HTTPS, not what you do there.
- The website
Sees: your IP address, and with it roughly where you are and who your internet provider is.
With a VPN
- You
- Your networkinternet provider, or the Wi-Fi of work, school or a caféEncrypted tunnel
Sees: only that you are connected to a VPN server, and how much data you send.
- VPN serverrun by the VPN provider
Sees: which sites you visit, as your internet provider did before.
- The website
Sees: the IP address of the VPN server. It still recognises you by your login and cookies.
What we did not check
3
- The extras Windscribe mentions in the same article against fingerprinting and cookies: we have not tested them.
- How recognisable your own browser is: that differs per device and browser, and we have not measured it.
- The quotes about VPNs come from the help pages of one VPN provider; other providers word it differently. The EU text does not mention VPNs.
Next step
- Log out of the accounts you do not want linked to what you do, or use a separate browser profile for them: what you do while logged in stays tied to that account.
- What is my IP address?
- DNS leak test