Couldn’t they somejow just correlate that info and know that its you watching the video. I feel like its futile…
Yes. For me reasons of VPN on Android (even with Google) are following:
- Most of greedy apps are trying to collect info about your location. Because in most of the cases you will restrict direct access to the location data, apps will try to do it through IP. VPN resolve this problem at all.
- A lot of greedy apps or websites are trying to do fingerprinting to identity your logs. While it is possible in theory to do fingerprinting by fuzzy matching all-logs against all-logs, the task is so computationally heavy that the only way is to try to do fuzzy-matching (aka fingerprinting) within the locations. VPN allows you to hide your location.
Of course one may say that VPN does not provide a 100% protections from fingerprinting, I think there should be applied the same approach like in cyber security: the goal is not to protect yourself by 100% but to make attack so expensive that it does not make sense. VPN makes fingerprinting so hard that noone will really do it until you are a journalist, intelligence officer or something like this.
Logs? Android apps can’t access other android apps logs
*logs on the server of app creator.
For me it’s pretty much mandatory because Youtube is normally blocked :/
Why is it blocked? Censorship?
yes
It depends who you are trying to hide from. A VPN will hide your internet traffic from your ISP/phone company, but obviously not from the site you are visiting.
At best you might be one of may people connecting from the same (VPN) IP address, but they can still collect info from your browser/app etc to generate points to ID you if they want.
I want to watch Youtube videos without Google knowing that it was me
A VPN does not provide inherent security. It is only as trustworthy as the entity providing it. As I understand it, A VPN to a safe LAN with firewall or such, yes. A VPN to a sketchy third party that will basically log everything you do, no.
VPN provides security in-transit between you and the VPN server. That’s it. Either end can nullify that security by leaking data before or after it is encrypted.
The traffic between the VPN and the target site is anonymous because most VPN’s use a rotating IP system. If the VPN truly doesn’t collect any data, the target site has no clue who is actually visiting other than that randomized IP address.
The point is, VPN’s do work and the biggest caveat is finding a VPN provider that you can trust.
I use Mullvad. You don’t have to give them any personal information at all.
I use another app to watch youtube, not their official app or official website.
InviZible Pro is a good option. Download from F-Droid