I am using HideMe VPN and it seems to work well, but I have a question about how it’s working. I set it up so Chrome is the only app using the VPN and confirmed that the public IP address is indeed not my actual IP address. I was downing a file from a website that only allows a single download at a time. I started the download on Chrome which uses the VPN. Then I opened another browser and confirmed it’s my actual IP address. When I tried to download a file from the same website above, it knows I’m downloading another file at the same time. But…how? The web server should only see the VPN IP address for Chrome so for all it knows, my other browser is a completely different person in a completely different country. Can anybody help explain this? Thanks.
It’s called device fingerprinting. Most websites/ad trackers no longer rely on IP address or cookies to identify you.
Make sure DNS for Chrome flows through the VPN as well, that’s port 53 both UDP and TCP. Also if the VPN doesn’t support IPv6 make sure Chrome cannot use IPv6. And don’t allow location.
Fascinating! After a quick read, then, it seemed like using another device (again–differnet IP address) would fool the fingerprinting since it’s a completely different computer, resolution, OS, etc. But the website still knows better. I don’t get it.