I’m beginning to hear a lot more about VPN’s (personal use for anonymity) in the press and I’m a bit worried it’s not understood enough.

Sales pitch: Get a VPN and your internet anonymity is restored.
Truth: It can be, but you have to be careful.

Other people will know more than me – there more than likely will be more to worry about than this. My main concern: cookies.

You get a lovely new vpn and then you use the same browser and user account to get on the net. BAM! You’re not anonymous any more!

A lot of the VPN providers sell the fact that it’s good for internet cafes. This is partly true – it will stop the others on the same wifi from snooping.  The problem is that as soon as you log on to Facebook via your VPN you’re not anonymous.  These are two different uses for a VPN and they’re not compatible.  If you’re looking for anonymity what are you doing on a social network?!  Scared of your ISP?  You should be just as scared of any website you need to log on to!

My steps for a nice clean VPN:

1. Get a VPN service (don’t use it yet!)
2. Set up a fresh windows user account (some may say this is overkill but it’s saved me a few times.  If you have a separate windows account then you don’t have to worry about your normal browser accidentally being opened and sending cookies.)
3. login to that user account and download firefox as the first thing you do
4. From now on, when on your VPN, only use your new windows account and firefox as your browser
5. Change the cookie settings to never allow cookies from a third party site (I’ve gone a bit further than this and ban all cookies and only re-enable source-cookies if I have a specific problem)
6. Install the NoScript firefox addon
7. Now you can start using your VPN
8. Never log on to any site – if you must log on to some sites then:
   1. get a new anonymous email account that is unrelated to everything else
   2. use that account for everything while you’re on your VPN
   3. never use those accounts while not on your VPN

All for now …