Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital 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 [email protected] to c/[email protected]

32 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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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[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

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

Nope ! I use the free tier on all my devices and nothing is leaked based on all tests I did.

If you are on linux you need to check your /etc/resolv.conf and see if your home's router/ISP DNS is in there.

Check also if networkManager hasn't your ISP's dns configured.

There are other locations where your home router's DNS could be hidden on linux after a DHCP configuration.

If it's on windows :/ sorry can't help there.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Don't edit the /etc/resolv.conf directly. You should edit the systemd resolved config.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

That's right !!! That was just a starting point for OP if he was on Linux and lacking that info I gave him just some pointer where to look at.

Anyway, most of the time it gets overwritten from other configuration files, nothing harmful. He could even have resolvconf installed on his system, who knows.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I am using windows but thank you for the information. Maybe it's because of my gps, metadata, phone ping, cellular network and other thing associated with play services like few mentioned in the comment section.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Long time I haven't booted into windows, so can't help there.

But rest assured that the free tier hides your real IP the same way as the paied tier.