this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2026
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Privacy
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VPN is the answer but keep in mind that you're just moving the trust to the VPN (they can see your traffic).
The web uses a request/response architecture. Your computer requests a cat pic from the server and the server sends a cat pic back. Your real IP address must be in the request... otherwise the response cannot be routed back to you. VPNs act like couriers making requests and receiving responses on your behalf. So:
Most web traffic is already encrypted with TLS but not the domain names and IPs (needed for routing).
If you really want to be anonymous on the web, use tor, but it's slow and many websites block tor exit nodes so you will have a degraded experience.
If I use VPN, my isp will see that I send and receive gibblish to and from a single address (the vpn server), all over port 443, right?
If I use TOR, what does my ISP see?
Itll go over a different port depending on the vpn protocol (i recommend wireguard). So the isp will know it's vpn gibberish, but there are ways to tunnel the ciphertext through https again (like wstunnel). A bit overkill for your setup but comes in handy if you need to break through firewalls (if you are in china and wireguard ports are blocked but 443 is allowed)
If you use tor, your isp sees tor traffic (gibberish) but tor also supports obfuscation to make it look like http. All you need to use tor is tor browser (mobile apps exist too) so try it out... It's free but you will see the limitations I mentioned.