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Your internet provider would be unable to see your history with vpn. This article explains how browsing works with and without vpn.

How internet provider can see history without VPN

Assume that you are accessing a website on the internet from your PC. The website request initially goes to your wireless router. The wireless router would then forward the request to your internet provider , from where the request is sent to actual server on the internet.

Before a website is accessed, the name of the website has to be resolved before the communication can happen. This is done using the DNS protocol. The DNS request to resolve the name of the website to its IP address is sent from the PC to the Wireless router.

The wireless router would then forward the request to the DNS server configured on it, which would typically be the DNS IP address of internet provider. This is where the internet provider knows, which website the customers are trying to access.

When a VPN is not used, the DNS request is sent in unencrypted format, which makes it possible for the internet provider to track and log the websites accessed if needed.

How internet provider cannot see history with VPN

When a VPN is used, all the requests sent to the internet is encrypted. To use a VPN on a device, you need to have the VPN software installed on it. If you do not have a VPN software, you can check out different options here – VPN Software Options – Click here

Once the VPN software is installed and setup, you need to connect to the VPN. During the process, the VPN software on your PC, connects to its VPN server. Note that browsing happens only after the VPN connection is established between the client and the server.

Once established, all the requests are sent encrypted. Although the requests are sent to the ISP, the contents cannot be looked into, since they are in encrypted format. This would make it impossible for the ISP to record or log the requests coming to it.

But then how does browsing work ?

All the internet requests from the ISP, would be sent to the VPN server. The VPN server would decrypt the packet, look into the contents and then forward the requests to the appropriate web server for access.

It should be noted that although the ISP cannot track the history, your VPN provider can, since all the packets are decrypted at the VPN server and then forwarded to the actual website. But then, VPN providers guarantee privacy and thats the main business goal.

So although it is technically possible, the VPN providers may not track your history as that stands against their business.

Should you have a VPN for connecting to internet

This is an individual choice. If you are worried about internet privacy, then you could have a VPN software installed on your device. You can check out for VPN software here – VPN Software Options – Click here

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