Frequently Asked Questions

No credible evidence has ever confirmed this happens — independent security researchers have analyzed app network traffic for years and found no hidden audio being recorded and sent to advertisers. What actually explains the "coincidence" is far less dramatic: your location history, browsing activity, app usage, and purchase data are shared and cross-referenced between dozens of data brokers and ad networks, creating profiles detailed enough to predict what you're about to want, sometimes right after you talk about it with someone who already searched for the same thing. See how much of that profile exists on you on the Data Brokers page.

No. Clearing cookies removes site-specific data like login sessions, but websites can still identify your browser through browser fingerprinting — a combination of your screen size, fonts, GPU, and dozens of other technical details that stays the same before and after you clear your history. Check how identifiable your own browser is with the free browser fingerprint test.

No. Private browsing (Incognito in Chrome, Private Browsing in Firefox/Safari) only stops your browser from saving local history, cookies, and form data on your own device after you close the window. It does nothing to your IP address, DNS requests, or browser fingerprint — your ISP, network administrator, and every website you visit can still see exactly who you are. (Apple's iCloud Private Relay is a separate Safari feature that does hide your IP, but it works the same whether private browsing is on or off.) Only a VPN or Tor actually changes what's visible to the outside.

Not directly — a public IP address only reveals an approximate location, typically accurate to the city or ZIP code level, not a street address. But combined with other publicly available or leaked personal information, it can get an attacker meaningfully closer to your real address. Hiding your IP is one layer of protection, not a complete guarantee of anonymity. See your own exposed location on the Location Details page.

No. Logging in makes tracking easier for companies since it ties activity to a known identity, but staying logged out doesn't make you invisible. Websites can still track you across visits using browser fingerprinting, third-party cookies, and your IP address, none of which require an account. Run the Am I Being Tracked? test to see exactly what's still visible.

A VPN hides your IP address and location from the platform's network-level view, but it does nothing to hide information you choose to share. If you post under your real name, upload photos, or fill out a public profile, that information is visible to anyone regardless of your VPN. A VPN protects your connection — it can't protect data you willingly publish yourself.

Usually, yes, but the drop is often small with a modern provider. Encrypting and routing your traffic through an extra server adds some latency, typically 10-20% on a good connection using a fast protocol like WireGuard with a nearby server. Cheap or overloaded VPN servers can slow things down far more noticeably. Test your own connection before and after connecting with the Speed Test.

Yes — they protect against different things and don't overlap. A VPN encrypts your connection and hides your IP address from networks and websites; it does nothing to stop malware already on your device or a malicious file you download. Antivirus software scans for and removes malicious files but doesn't encrypt your traffic or hide your identity online. Most security-conscious users run both.

They're built for different threat models, not a simple better/worse comparison. Tor routes your traffic through at least three volunteer-run relays, making it extremely difficult to trace back to you, which is better for situations demanding strong anonymity. A VPN is faster, more convenient for everyday streaming and browsing, and lets you pick your exit location, but requires trusting a single provider instead of a decentralized network. Many privacy-focused users combine both.

Yes. Incognito mode only affects what's saved locally on your own device — it does nothing to hide your IP address or encrypt your traffic from your ISP or network. A VPN and private browsing solve completely different problems and work well together, but neither replaces the other.

It depends on whose VPN and whose network. If you're using a personal VPN on your own device over your home Wi-Fi, your employer generally can't see your browsing activity. But if you're on a company-managed device, connected to a corporate VPN, or using work Wi-Fi with monitoring software installed, your employer's own network tools can see activity regardless of any personal VPN you might also be running. Company policy, not just technology, usually governs what's actually monitored.

It's more dangerous than a private home network, though modern HTTPS encryption has closed off some of the older, more dramatic sniffing attacks. Today, a bigger risk on public networks is often an "Evil Twin" — a fake hotspot set up by an attacker to impersonate the venue's real Wi-Fi. A VPN encrypts your connection before it ever leaves your device, protecting you even if you accidentally connect to a malicious router — see the full VPN Guide.

Yes, by default. Even though HTTPS encrypts the content of the pages you visit, your ISP can still see which domains you connect to via unencrypted DNS requests, unless you specifically enable DNS over HTTPS or use a VPN, which routes and encrypts all of that traffic through its own servers instead of your ISP's.

In most of the US, yes — tracking is legal by default. Unlike the EU's GDPR, which requires opt-in consent before tracking, US federal law imposes no such requirement. A rapidly growing list of states — including California, Virginia, Colorado, and Texas — now give residents opt-out rights over having their data sold or shared, but that's different from requiring permission before tracking starts. See which trackers actually run on a typical page with the Ad Tracker Blocking Test.

No. Uninstalling an app removes it from your device, but any data it already sent to the company's servers typically stays there under that company's own retention policy — deleting the app doesn't trigger deletion of that data. If the company sold that data to a data broker before you uninstalled, it may already be circulating independently of the original app entirely.

Yes, and it's the normal setup, not a problem. Every device on your home network has its own private IP address, but your router uses NAT (Network Address Translation) to share a single public IP address with the outside world for all of them. From a website's perspective, every device on your home network looks like it's coming from the same IP.

It depends entirely on the specific extension. A reputable, well-reviewed extension from a known developer is generally safe, but any extension you install can technically read and modify every page you visit, which is a significant amount of trust to hand over. Some extensions, even ones marketed as ad blockers or privacy tools, have been caught collecting and selling browsing data themselves. Only install extensions you actually need, and check reviews and permissions before adding one. See the recommended privacy extensions.

No. A bipartisan federal proposal, the American Privacy Rights Act, advanced through committee in 2024 but stalled and was never passed into law. As of 2026, US privacy protection still relies on a growing patchwork of individual state laws rather than one federal standard — see the CCPA/CPRA glossary entry and the full state-by-state breakdown.

The Five Eyes is an intelligence-sharing agreement between the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and as a US citizen, you're already inside it, not outside looking in. This mostly matters when choosing a VPN: some privacy-focused users prefer providers based outside Five Eyes (or the extended Nine/Fourteen Eyes) countries, reasoning that it reduces the chance of cross-border data requests reaching a provider's logs. A verified, audited no-logs policy matters more in practice than jurisdiction alone.

Yes. The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) makes it illegal for commercial websites and apps to knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 without verifiable parental consent, and it requires operators to disclose what they collect and let parents review or delete it. COPPA is one of the few areas where US federal privacy law is actually stricter than the general adult default, which otherwise relies on the state-by-state patchwork covered above.