Hi,
I’ve been using VPN on my android phone for 2 months. Primarily, it was for security concerns since I connect a lot on public/shared networks. But regarding privacy, is it even useful, since everything I do is on a phone running a Google OS, using Google services(Gmail, Chrome, YouTube,…)? Plus I noticed a lot of times that when doing a Google search, it would be performed on site of the country that I’m in even though I was connected on a VPN server in another country. I’m not able as well to overcome the geographical limitations on YouTube. I tried deactivating and deleting my location history, as well as the history of searches on Maps, and the GPS location is activated only when needed. Maybe Google is still able to locate me because of the cell network I’m connected to, though I deactivated that as well in the location settings (but I think this setting is only effective when the GPS location is activated).
So in the end I’m wondering if a VPN is of any help in protecting my privacy if I’m using an Android phone. (Or is because of the VPN provider? I use pee eye aye)
Edit: grammar
Short answer: Yes, A Vpn is a help to protect your privacy.
You need to know that a Vpn alone is not enough. You have to prevent leaks by yourself. Very strange what you are writing, i start to think that it could be your vpn.
To find out, when connected to a new ip, go to a website to find what it is showing. Google “what is my ip etc.”
If you find your real ip showing, you should change your vpn service. That is a start.
Second, i would suggest a different web browser. I recommend Firefox where you can enter “about:config” and tweak it by yourself (one example is disable geolocation and webrtc setting: media.peerconnection.enabled set to false)
Deactivate all kind of gps location and localizations on your phone. If you can, try to control the permissions your apps have. Here is the funny thing, stupid apps have more permission than they need and plenty of them have the permission to locate you. Disable all of them, there are even apps that allow you to see and control the permissions if your phone doesn´t have Privacy Guard.
Your location is set based on the billing address on your Google account if I recall correctly…
For a while I could torrent on my work Wifi. Then all of sudden, one day I could no longer torrent. In came the use of VPN on my phone and lo and behold I could torrent again.
Thank you for your answer. I went on https://ipleak.net/, once through the VPN, once without it. When with the VPN, the IP was located was in the right country, but there is an IP that appeared in both cases under “Private IPv4 detected”. Does that mean, as they say, that I have a WebRTC request leak? If I use FireFox instead, it would solve that problem. But what about other apps? What app would you recommend to control the apps permissions? Are you talking about LEO Privacy Guard?
I checked and it seems I don’t have a billing address registered on my Google account.
there is an IP that appeared in both cases under “Private IPv4 detected”
Which ip appeared? Your real one, or the vpn one?
Try installing Firefox to try. As stated on ipleak:
Type "about:config” in the address bar. Scroll down to “media.peerconnection.enabled”, double click to set it to false
Then go to ipleak again and check. All the ip´s shown should be the ones you get from your vpn. If your real ip appears, then you have a leak, let me know. There are other things you can disable to prevent leaks.
About the permission app, i was talking about AppOps or similar. Once installed a list of all your apps will appear, you can then check which app has what permission.
Also simply in your phone, under settings disable the geolocalization.
Google wallet or Google play credit card on file?
Thank you for the precisions. So here are the results on ipleak with and without VPN on Chrome and on Firefox with webRTC disabled. I must admit I don’t really know how to interpret these results. (Edit: I’m in Canada)
Then I tried to watch YouTube videos directly from Firefox with the VPN enabled but still wasn’t able to get around the geographical restriction.
I also wanted to install AppOps, but couldn’t since my device isn’t rooted (even though I’m on Android 5.1)
Actually I think I only bought something on Play twice, and when I did I paid it through my phone contract billing.
If i see your pictures well you are not leaking on Firefox so good!
But i think you are leaking on Chrome, which is harder, if not impossible to set for that, but you can try one last thing before uninstalling it:
- Enter Chrome and digit chrome://flags
- search “disable-webrtc” in the address bar and press enter
- Press “Enable” under that option
- Reboot your phone
About the permissions without root, do a search because i cannot help you with that.
