I was foolishly relying on Private Relay. Now I’ll have to find a reliable VPN.
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Private VPN Service Recommendations and Comparison, No Sponsors or Ads - Privacy Guides If you are not a torrent user. Else you need port forwarding.
How does that help in hiding your IP address?
I get what she’s saying. For torrents, you’d need a VPN and port forwarding. Torrents require that there be a (configurable) port forwarded so that you can connect properly to the torrent network. If a VPN doesn’t offer that service, then you’re going to have a Very Hard Time trying to download/upload.
And port forwarding isn’t a given with VPN services. You’d presumably need to find one other than the ones in the link she posted.
If I recall correctly, there was a rather lengthy thread not too long ago about VPNs. My interpretation from that is that by and large, VPNs are really not that good at protecting one’s identity and working online. I don’t particularly care that much given the benign nature of my internet work, except for the spam and advertising related exposure, which with AI, I presume is and will be much worst.
Did I misunderstand the value of VPNs? I ask because for a while I was using ExpressVPN but have cancelled the service thinking it provided little addition privacy since I use Private Relay.
a VPN is for all your internet traffic, private relay is just for safari and mail.
What @aardy said, with the addition that not being able to identify your IP address is different from not being able to identify you.
A VPN:
- Prevents your ISP from being able to tell what you’re doing online (other than, obviously, connecting to a VPN
) - Lumps all of your Internet traffic together on a single IP with a number of other users, making it a more difficult for data aggregators to sort out
- As a side benefit of the lumping your Internet traffic onto a different IP, it also allows you to bounce your IP around to different countries in case that’s a benefit to you
A VPN does not
- Prevent browser fingerprinting
- Prevent you from being identified when you log into a website (username/password)
- Prevent cookies being stored on your computer that can potentially identify you
The issue here is that apparently while Apple does do the VPN stuff above for Safari and Mail, there are incidental cases (passkeys) where your computer makes requests that don’t go through the private relay - which leaks your IP.
If the VPN benefits listed above are important to you, you need a VPN. Ideally a VPN with a “kill switch” that blocks all Internet traffic if the VPN disconnects. The second category of stuff is probably the larger privacy issue, which isn’t helped by either Apple Private Relay or a VPN.