Privacy

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Does VPNs even work against Big Brother apps? Using one really protects our privacy? (masking our location) (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by PrivacyWayFinder@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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I am currently using Proton VPN (free tier) which is set to Always-ON and Block Connections on disable.

Today while I am going through my Gmail security option, on the devices/sessions I found my real location mentioned over there. Even when I use desktop I always connect to VPN.

On this issue I got couple of doubts:

Is this because I am using a free tier VPN? so it's not functioning properly etc...
Else google fixed my location based on my previous location history? I used my google applications without VPN for many years, I am just learning & following privacy tips recently.

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[–] lemmyreader@lemmy.ml 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Is this because I am using a free tier VPN? so it’s not functioning properly etc…

Does Proton not have a page to check your IP address and check for DNS leaks (Mullvad does : https://mullvad.net/en -> Check for leaks) ?
Did you look up your IP address by other means ?
On the desktop with Linux you can check the content of /etc/resolv.conf and ip a (Your local IP) and ip r (Gateway address).

Else google fixed my location based on my previous location history? I used my google applications without VPN for many years, I am just learning & following privacy tips recently.

Are the sessions from your last login ? With some applications (Dunno about Google) you can delete older sessions from the overview.

[–] PrivacyWayFinder@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Thank you for the tips. I have checked the leaks turns out it's not the problem with vpn, it's with my gps, metadata thing I think. I guess de-googling my phone solves this.

[–] swayevenly@lemm.ee 2 points 5 months ago

I had certain APIs circumvent my VPN in the past. Turns out my router was allowing IPv6 traffic and my VPN doesn't support that. Solved it by disabling ipv6.