How to Make Your Browsing Data More Private than a Thousand Incognito Windows

Thanks to an assist from Congress,

your cable company has the legal right

to sell your web browsing data

without your explicit consent.

If that seems a little gross to you,

and it should, don't worry.

There's a way to keep all of your browsing data

more private that a thousands incognito windows ever could.

It's called a virtual private network or VPN.

I'm Brian Barrett, Wired's news editor,

and this is your guide to staying safe on the internet.

So, a VPN works by routing your traffic

through an encrypted connection to a private network.

What that means in practice is that when your cable company

or anyone else checks in on where you've been browsing,

all they can see is that you're connecting to the VPN.

There's some other benefits too.

So, VPN's can mask your location,

which helps get around regional content restrictions

or oppressive governments,

if that's something that you deal with.

And reputable VPN's keep no logs of your activity,

meaning they can't cough up your search history,

even under subpoena.

And that's the catch, the reputable part.

Because everything you do on the internet

flows through a VPN server,

they can access, well, all of it if they wanted to.

Most of the time,

all you have is their word that they won't,

and that may not be good enough.

There are some filters you can use when you pick a VPN

to make sure it's a safe one though, or at least safer.

Paid services are a good bet

because then at least you know how they make their money.

And never sign up with a VPN

that stores logs of your activity.

That's bad; it kind of defeats the whole purpose.

Once you've found a service you're happy with,

getting started though is easy.

Just create an account, download some software,

and congratulations:

you're free from your ISP's prying eyes.