LFM

What this page can see

This is your real device, not a demonstration. Your browser handed most of this over the instant the page loaded, and one lookup on your IP address added the city and the provider. No cookie, no login, no permission asked. Every site you open can collect the same. If you are already routing through a VPN, Tor, or Safari with iCloud Private Relay on, the address and location below belong to an exit or relay server, not to you.

What your address gives awayreading…
Your IP address
…
Every site you open and your internet provider see this address as you. We read it from our own server, the same way every site can.
Mullvad VPN routes your traffic through its servers; sites see Mullvad's IP, not yours. Mullvad keeps no connection logs and accepts payment that does not tie to your name. Tor distributes your traffic across three nodes; each node sees only its adjacent hop.
Where that puts you
…
Any site can send the address above to an IP-location service and get this back, with no permission and no cookie. It is your city and region, not your street, and it is usually close.
Your location estimate comes from your IP. When you route through Mullvad VPN or Tor, the estimate reflects the exit node's city, not yours. Your ISP still sees that you connected to the VPN. It does not see where you went from there.
Your provider
…
This is the internet company that owns your address. Given a request or a court order, the provider can tie the address to the account, and the account to a name.
A VPN replaces your ISP here with the VPN provider. This trades one choke point for another: the VPN provider now holds the traffic knowledge your ISP no longer has. A no-logs provider with a completed third-party audit reduces what that choke point holds.
VPN in use
…
This line shows only whether you use Cloudflare's own WARP product. A different VPN shows here as off but still changes your IP. The VPN provider sees your connection; the question is whether it logs what you do with it.
Any VPN changes the IP sites see. The provider you route through replaces your ISP as the party with traffic knowledge. Choose a provider that publishes a third-party no-logs audit, not just a privacy policy.
Connection
…
HTTPS encrypts the page contents. Your ISP still sees which site you reached, because the site's name is sent in the clear while the secure connection is being set up.
Encrypted DNS (DoH or DoT) hides the hostname lookup from your ISP. A VPN that carries your DNS lookups hides them too. Tor hides both the hostname and the destination from your ISP and from the VPN provider.
The city and provider above come from a public IP-lookup service, queried once from your browser using your address. That is the same kind of lookup a tracker runs on every visitor.
One tap, your exact position

A site can ask for your precise location

The lines above come only from your IP address. Your browser can share your exact location, down to a few meters, but only if you allow it. The button asks once, then remembers your choice for this site. Nothing leaves this page; the result stays here.

// and what your browser tells every page, with no permission asked

A site reads that combination as a fingerprint and recognizes you on your next visit, with no cookie needed. A fingerprint-resisting browser hides most of these traits: Brave covers everyday use, and Mullvad Browser or Tor Browser go further when you need to be unlinkable.

Show detail

The address and location at the top change only when your traffic is routed somewhere else first: through a VPN such as Mullvad, through Tor, or through Apple's iCloud Private Relay, an iCloud+ feature that hides your IP from sites in Safari but still shows your general location by default. Fingerprint settings do not change your address or location.

For the strongest protection, Privacy Guides recommends Mullvad Browser together with a VPN. You then share a fingerprint and a pool of IP addresses with many other users, a crowd to blend into, and that is the only way to defeat advanced tracking scripts. To test it, open this page again from that setup, watch the rows above go generic, and record the before and after on the field-exercise worksheet.

One caution: do not pile on privacy extensions. Fingerprint resistance can itself be used to fingerprint you, so extensions and non-standard settings make your browser stand out from the crowd. Leave Mullvad Browser and Tor Browser at their default settings.

Tools: Mullvad VPN · Mullvad Browser · Tor Browser · Brave. Test the full picture: EFF Cover Your Tracks. Background: Privacy Guides, browsers and fingerprinting.