VPN and Google Location History

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richb
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Joined: Wed Jul 12, 2006 2:17 pm

VPN and Google Location History

#1 Post by richb »

For those using a VPN:

If you are using any Google app, login to your Google account and have Web and App Activity turned on, (specifically Location History), Google will know your true location regardless if your VPN is active.
You can test this by doing a Google search on any topic and scrolling to the bottom of the page. Your true location will be listed.
To turn off Web and App Activity visit this page: https://myaccount.google.com/activityco ... arch?pli=1.

Click the button to pause Web and App Activity. This will also pause Location History. If you want to refine the setting click "Show all activity controls"

You may have to restart your computer and ensure your VPN is active. Then check again with a Google search. You should see the chosen VPN location.
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richb Administrator
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handy
Posts: 611
Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2018 2:00 pm

Re: VPN and Google Location History

#2 Post by handy »

As a side note to the above: I use this page as my home page: https://ipleak.net

It was created by Air VPN, & does a pretty good job of showing you most of what others can see about you when you land on their website.

I use enough privacy protection along with PIA-VPN to make my browser unique in over 1.5 million browsers (according to the likes of https://panopticlick.eff.org - who don't give you that number anymore).
1_MSI: MAG B560 TORP', i5, RAM 16GB, GTX 1070 Ti 12GB, M2 238GB + USB, MX-23 Fb to Openbox
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skidoo
Posts: 753
Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2015 6:56 pm

Re: VPN and Google Location History

#3 Post by skidoo »

unique in over 1.5 million browsers
Dude. That's not a good result. Your "enough privacy protection" is achieving a seriously poor result.
A good result, indicating "effectively blending in with the crowd" would be a LOW number (e.g. one in twenty-five thousand)

ip-check.info is another site (operated by Jondonyn) which offers a fingerprintability check.

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handy
Posts: 611
Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2018 2:00 pm

Re: VPN and Google Location History

#4 Post by handy »

I know. I wasn't saying it to stroke my ego. :)

No matter what you do, some entities will still be able to track you.

I consider myself somewhat protected from at least your everyday criminal. Though it is the likes of the multi-billion dollar organisations (government agencies & the G**gles of this world) that have created their positions of wealth & power by stealing everything that they possibly can from the populations of the world whilst those populations weren't looking due to both ignorance & distraction.

We do what we can, & don't get too stressed about the things that we can't change. Life is far too short. ;)
1_MSI: MAG B560 TORP', i5, RAM 16GB, GTX 1070 Ti 12GB, M2 238GB + USB, MX-23 Fb to Openbox
2_Lenovo: Ideapad 520S, i5, RAM 8GB, GPU i620, HDD 1TB, MX-21 - Openbox
3_Clevo: P150SM-A, i7, RAM 16GB, nVidia 8600, 2x 1TB HDD & M.2 256 GB, MX-21 - Openbox

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