VPNs are often sold as a “privacy silver bullet,” but that framing causes more confusion.
A VPN does not make you anonymous.
It does not stop cookies, logins, browser fingerprinting, or payment-based identification.
What a VPN actually does is much narrower and more technical:
- It encrypts your internet traffic in transit
- It prevents your ISP or local network from seeing which destinations you connect to
- It makes websites see the VPN server’s IP instead of your real one
- That’s privacy at the network level, not identity hiding.
I wrote a detailed blogpost. Check it out.
Browser fingerprinting is very effective in tracking users. VPNs are totally useless against it. Tor offers partial protection as they make all users look same. So if your looking for anonymity better use Tor. VPNs keep your data safe and browsing private.