Updated October 2026: This article has been rewritten and expanded with current information.

Network cables plugged into the back of a home router

Private browsing and VPNs both sound like ways to "go invisible" online, and both are often marketed with words like private, secure and anonymous. In reality they solve different problems. Private browsing, called Incognito in Chrome and InPrivate in Edge, keeps your activity off the device you are using. A VPN, or virtual private network, hides your traffic from the network you are connected to by sending it through an encrypted tunnel to a server run by someone else.

This article explains what each tool actually does, why a VPN covers threats that private browsing cannot, where VPNs fall short, and how to choose one without relying on marketing. It also covers a less discussed issue: who owns the VPN apps people install, since a VPN provider can see what your internet provider no longer can.

What private browsing does

When you close all your private windows, the browser discards the history, cookies and site data from that session. Google's own Chrome help page says Chrome "doesn't retain site data or a record of the sites you visited" once Incognito windows are closed. Files you download and bookmarks you save are kept.

What private browsing does not do is hide you from anyone outside your device. Google's help page states that the websites you visit, including Google's, and the organizations that manage your network, such as your employer, school or internet service provider, may still see your activity. Your IP address is still visible to every site you load, and if you sign in to an account during a private session, that site knows exactly who you are.

The limits of private browsing were tested in court. A class action filed in 2020, Brown v. Google, accused Google of collecting data from people using Incognito mode. In April 2024, Google agreed to settle by destroying billions of records collected from private browsing, updating its disclosures about what Incognito does, and letting Incognito users block third-party cookies for five years. Google paid no damages to the class and said it considered the lawsuit meritless, but the case made clear that "private" mainly meant private from other people using your computer.

That is still useful. Private browsing is the right tool for checking email on a shared or borrowed computer, shopping for a gift on a family laptop, or signing in to a second account without logging out of your first.

What a VPN does

A VPN app encrypts all the internet traffic from your device and sends it to a server operated by the VPN provider, which then passes it on to the websites and apps you use. That has three practical effects:

  • The local network cannot read your traffic. On public Wi-Fi at a café, hotel or airport, the network operator and anyone snooping on it see only an encrypted connection to the VPN server.
  • Your internet provider cannot see which sites you visit. It can see that you are using a VPN and how much data you send, but not the destinations.
  • Websites see the VPN server's IP address instead of yours. That hides your approximate location and makes it harder to link visits back to your home connection. It is also why VPNs are used to appear to be in another country, though many streaming services' terms prohibit this and some actively block VPN addresses.

A VPN also works for every app on the device, not just the browser, so it protects traffic from email, messaging and other apps on an untrusted network.

What a VPN does not do

A VPN does not make you anonymous. If you sign in to Google, Facebook or a shopping site, those companies know it is you, whatever IP address you use. Cookies, browser fingerprinting and ad trackers still work over a VPN. A VPN does not protect you from phishing, malware or scam websites, and it does not replace keeping your software updated.

Most importantly, a VPN shifts trust rather than removing the need for it. Everything your internet provider could see, the VPN provider can now see instead. Whether that is an improvement depends entirely on who runs the VPN.

It is also worth remembering that most websites now use HTTPS, which already encrypts the content of your traffic between your browser and the site. On a modern HTTPS site, someone on the same Wi-Fi can see which site you are visiting but not what you type or read there. A VPN adds protection on top of that, chiefly hiding which sites you visit and your IP address, rather than being the only thing standing between you and eavesdroppers.

Private browsingVPN
Clears history and cookies on your deviceYesNo
Hides sites you visit from your internet providerNoYes
Encrypts traffic on public Wi-FiNo (HTTPS still applies)Yes
Hides your IP address from websitesNoYes (sites see the VPN server)
Covers apps outside the browserNoYes
Stops tracking when you are signed inNoNo
Protects against phishing and malwareNoNo
Who you must trustYour browser maker and the sites you visitThe VPN provider
CostFree, built into every major browserFree tiers exist; full services are usually paid

Based on Google Chrome help documentation and general VPN behavior. Features vary by provider.

Who owns your VPN?

Because a VPN provider sees so much, ownership matters, and it is often less obvious than app-store listings suggest. In July 2019, the review site VPNpro reported that 97 VPN products it examined belonged to just 23 parent companies, and that six China-based companies together offered 29 of them. Many of the brands did not make their ownership clear.

The issue has not gone away. In 2025, the Tech Transparency Project, a watchdog group, reported that 20 of the top 100 free VPN apps in Apple's US App Store showed evidence of Chinese ownership. A follow-up report that June still found 13 such apps among the top free VPNs on Apple's store and 11 on Google Play, several linked to Qihoo 360, a Chinese security company on the US Commerce Department's Entity List.

Consolidation is common among well-known Western brands too. In September 2021, Kape Technologies, which already owned CyberGhost, ZenMate and Private Internet Access, bought ExpressVPN for $936 million. Kape had previously operated as Crossrider, a company whose software had been criticized for injecting ads into browsers. In February 2022, Nord Security, the parent of NordVPN, merged with Surfshark, with the two brands continuing to operate separately. None of this means these services are unsafe, but it shows that brands which look like competitors may share an owner, and that reviews comparing them are not always independent.

How to choose, starting with free and built-in options

  1. Decide what you actually need. If you only want to keep a shared computer clean, private browsing is free and enough. If you regularly use public Wi-Fi or want to hide your browsing from your internet provider, a VPN is the right tool.
  2. Check what you already have. Some employers provide a VPN for work devices. Apple's iCloud+ subscription includes iCloud Private Relay, which sends Safari traffic through two separate relays, one run by Apple and one by a third party, so that no single company sees both who you are and which sites you visit. It is not a full VPN, since it mainly covers Safari, and it is not available in every country.
  3. Be wary of unknown free VPN apps. Running a VPN costs money. A free app from a company you cannot identify may be paid for by collecting and selling data, which defeats the purpose. Free tiers from established, clearly identified providers are a different matter.
  4. Look up the owner. Search the company name behind the app, where it is based, and whether it has published independent security or no-logs audits.
  5. Read the privacy policy. Look for what is logged, how long it is kept, and whether data is shared with partners.
  6. Keep your other defenses on. A VPN works alongside HTTPS, software updates, unique passwords and two-factor authentication. It does not replace them.

The bottom line

VPNs are often preferred over private browsing because they protect something private browsing never claimed to protect: your traffic as it crosses networks you do not control. But they are not magic invisibility. Private browsing hides your activity from people who share your device. A VPN hides it from your local network and internet provider, at the cost of trusting the VPN company. Know which problem you are solving, and pick the simplest tool that solves it.

Sources

Top image: "Network cables plugged to router 20170903" by Santeri Viinamäki, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (resized). Charts by Thank You Robot.