VPNs are getting extremely popular ' here's everything you need to know about them

Internet privacy was once again thrustinto the limelight recently when President Donald Trump signed a bill that would allow internet service providers (ISPs) to sell your browsing history to third parties, like advertisers.As much as the news rekindled concerns aroundinternet privacy, little has actually changed. The signed bill is generallykeeping things as they currently are. The outrage comes from the fact that the bill is rolling back on Obama-era measure to prevent ISPs from tracking and selling your browsing history, which didn't have time to take effect before he left office.Still, some of you may be looking for ways to browse the web privately, and one of the most prominent solutions is to use a virtual private network, or VPN, which cloaks your online activity.Here's what VPNs are, what they do, and what to look out for if you're an average person using the internet.SEE ALSO:Trump just killed Obama's internet-privacy rules ' here's what that means for youA VPN essentially hides your internet activity from your internet service provider (ISP), which means it has nothing to sell to third parties.If the internet is an open highway, VPNs act like a tunnel that hides your internet traffic. The VPN "tunnel" encrypts your internet traffic into a garbledmess of numbers that can't be deciphered by your ISP, or a third-party.Most VPNs also hide identifying details about your computer from ISPs.Any device that's connected to your ISP's network has an IP address, whichlooks like a series of numbers. Many Americans have multiple devices, so ISPs useIP addresses to see which device has accessed which websites, as well as its location.Without an IP address, your devices wouldn't be able to communicate with the websites you want to look at, and you wouldn't be able to browse the internet.VPN services hide the IP addresses on the devices you use with the VPN and replaces it with one of their own IP addresses from one of their ownservers, which can be located anywhere in the world. So, if you're in the US, but you're connected to a VPN server in Europe, ISPs will see the VPN's European server's IP address instead of your device's.Can't ISPs track my browsing history through the VPN's IP address'They could if you were the only user on that VPN server. However, there are usually several users using the same VPN IP address, so they can't determine whether a browsing history belongs to you, specifically. It's like searching for a needle in a stack of needles.See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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