What is the best VPN for Chrome in 2021? Moreover, why do you need a VPN? Isn’t using Incognito Mode enough to protect your privacy?
At present, 68.26% of global Internet users use Google Chrome to browse the Internet. This makers Chrome, the world’s most popular web browser. However, Google Chrome is far from the world’s most private.
One way to enhance privacy in Google Chrome is to use a VPN or use Google Chrome in Incognito Mode. However, if you do this, there are still some privacy issues you need to be aware of.
Do you have concerns about how big companies like Google use your web browsing data?
If you do care about Internet privacy, you are probably already familiar with many free VPN extensions available in the Chrome Web Store. You are likely also a regular user of Google Chrome in Incognito Mode. There is just one problem.
Despite advertising themselves as such, browser extensions available in the Chrome Web Store are not true VPNs. Because of this, extensions to little to legitimately protect your privacy.
- VPN apps and extensions in the Chrome Web Store do not encrypt your web browsing data.
- By not encrypting data, everything you do online is still visible to VPN app providers and people they share data with.
- Free VPN web browser extensions often contain spyware apps that harvest user data for malicious purposes.
As it stands, if you use a VPN for Chrome in the form of a Chrome web browser extension, all that you are doing is using a proxy server to browse the Internet.
When using a proxy, all your Internet traffic is routed through one or more different IP addresses. This is important, as whoever operates these addresses can monitor your behavior and even inject malicious code into your web browser.
- When you use a VPN browser extension, your PC model, operating system details, and even device screen resolution can all be identified by websites you visit.
- In most cases, it is easy to determine the physical IP address of a person using a VPN extension, even when traffic is sent between the Internet and your web browser is encrypted.
- When using VPN extensions, background processes and other apps on your device still connect to the Internet normally.
Though there is no replacement for a VPN using Brave Browser is more secure than Google Chrome.
Are you looking for the Best VPN for Chrome in 2021? If so, it is a basic fact that no free VPN browser extension is truly safe to use. – What, though, about built-in privacy features like Google Chrome Incognito Mode?
If you are looking to stop big corporations from tracking your behavior online, using Google Chrome in Incognito Mode is a safer option than using a free VPN extension. However, Incognito Mode itself also has a few worrying privacy flaws.
How Google Chrome Incognito Mode works is simple. Whenever you browse the Internet normally, websites you visit set tracking cookies in your browser. These are small snippets of code that keep reporting back to websites after you visit other URLs.
- Cookies track where you go online to identify your personal search preferences.
- Most cookies sell the information they gather to advertisers. Either this or they use data to tailor their own ads to you personally.
- Cookies track not just your web browsing habits, but also what social media platforms you use.
Most cookies also track your adult entertainment preferences. Worse, many gather data about who you bank with, who your email provider is, and even where you live.
Thankfully, Google Chrome Incognito Mode stops cookies from tracking you. It does this by deleting all cookies as soon as a web browsing session ends. This means that every time you go online using Incognito Mode, you appear as a stranger to most websites.
Sadly, what Incognito Mode can’t do is disguise your physical location. In theory, though, Incognito Mode is perfect for most everyday Internet users. There is just one problem.
Because Google Chrome Incognito Mode prevents website cookies from tracking users, many people go Incognito rather than trust free VPN extensions to protect their privacy.
Sadly, ongoing legal action against Google in the U.S. suggests that using Incognito Mode doesn’t protect your privacy as well as you might think.
- According to an ongoing claim against Google in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California , Google itself has been caught secretly harvesting the browsing data of people using Incognito Mode.
- Until recently, Google claimed that Chrome does not track users who use Incognito Mode. However, this statement was recently revoked ahead of the current California legal complaint being filed.
- Now, Google openly admits that when using Google Chrome in Incognito Mode, Google itself can track user behavior using an in-built browser tracking system.
In short, Google Chrome still prevents websites you visit from tracking you. However, Google itself will still track your behavior, as well as share data gathered from doing so with third parties.
Given the security dangers of free VPN extensions and recent Google policy changes, there is only one way to protect your privacy when using Google Chrome. – We’re talking, of course, about using a full VPN, not just a VPN add-on or extension.
When you use a full VPN, you benefit from being able to browse the Internet in total privacy.
There are, of course, many VPNs online that say they do the same as we do free of charge. However, free VPNs are usually VPNs in name only.
Almost all free VPN services (and even some paid VPN browser extensions) are notorious for logging and tracking users. This being the case, never use free VPNs or VPN extensions from the Chrome Web Store.
Instead, protect your privacy to the fullest extent possible, by using a real VPN. The real VPN we recommend is PureVPN as we have reviewed them thoroughly and find them to be the best.

Kevin
Online freelancer, owner of Shielded VPN and long time website creator and designer. Happily married man and father of two amazing boys.