HTTPs will not stop Google from logging your IP + activity on their services. I'm not convinced that ad-blockers are 100% effective in disabling trackers either. One of the appeals of VPNs is that you have multiple points of exit and they rotate.
Google can track you fairly effectively even if you’re behind a VPN. I’m not sure if they choose to at this time, but if a significant population switches to hiding behind VPNs, they will turn on the finer fingerprinting means.
>Google can track you fairly effectively even if you’re behind a VPN.
You don't know anything about my setup, so you have no basis for claiming this.
On the other hand, if you have an exclusive sticky IP, you will be tracked all the time. And even if they don't do extensive fingerprinting right now, they can always go back and look at basic HTTP logs.
> You don't know anything about my setup, so you have no basis for claiming this.
Sure, but the discussion isn't specifically about your setup, it's about the advertising claims that a VPN will help prevent tracking. Which is totally bunk.
> On the other hand, if you have an exclusive sticky IP, you will be tracked all the time. And even if they don't do extensive fingerprinting right now, they can always go back and look at basic HTTP logs.
Tracking with IP is honestly hardly tracking at all. With local network NAT and CGN your device IP will not be unique at all. With modern tracking, your IP will be just another couple bits of entropy, and most certainly not enough to pinpoint traffic to individuals in a robust and scaleable way.
The only tracking protection that a VPN offers is preventing your ISP from seeing your traffic, and making it harder to pinpoint web traffic to you as an individual (assumging you VPN provider doesn't have logs)
