There’s nothing really unknown in this post, I just want to share a little experiment with my personal homespun conclusion at the bottom.
- I open Chromium and I guess what IP the computer is given by the ISP. It’s an IP from my Spain
- Launch the ProtonVPN (via a free Japan server) connection and check the IP. It’s an IP from Norway
- I launch the Tor Browser over this VPN connection and check the IP. It’s an IP from Switzerland. Then, I reload the Tor Browser and the IP now its’ from France. Which is absolutely the expected behaviour according to Tor Browser features.
- I stopped the ProtonVPN connection while both browsers (Chromium and Tor) are running.
- The Chromium shows again the IP from Spain, the Tor Browser keeps showing an IP from a different town, Germany this time.
For this experiment I’ve used:
- ProtonVPN
- Chromium browser
- Tor browser
- A web page that shows you your IP, ProtonVPN tutorial suggests http://ipleak.net (there’re many more)
Homespun conclusion:
- If you just want to browse web pages you may do it via Tor Browser, no VPN is needed.
- If you need a wide IP traffic, not only web browsing (such a ssh, torrent, or whatever) consider a trusty VPN service. Consider privacy, logging and external auditing related with the VPN of your choice.