Is my VPN working?

[DonnyB]

I just decided to get a VPN service and it seems to be working, but I am not really sure. I can go to a car insurance website and look at some of their pages, not entering any of my personal info, in fact, not entering anything. Then in a few days I start getting car insurance ads in my email. What can I do?

 

[ColinTaylor]

I can't think of any connection between using a VPN service and receiving ads via email. That's not something that a VPN service would affect one way or another.

 

[DonnyB]

How does a website that I visit get my email address?

 

[Tech Junky]

Cookies

 

[ColinTaylor]

How does a website that I visit get my email address?

Theoretically it can't. It's not like your web browser is sending your email address. It's probably using tracking cookies to link your browsing back to an advertiser that already knows your email address (e.g. Amazon).

 

[dosborne]

Search engines, DNS servers, ISPs, cookie harvesting apps/sites and a large number of other sources *could* track some, or a lot of what you do, but without knowing a lot of specifics about your OS, browser, network configuration, etc, it would be pointless to guess.

 

[sfx2000]

I can go to a car insurance website and look at some of their pages, not entering any of my personal info, in fact, not entering anything. Then in a few days I start getting car insurance ads in my ema

Nothing to do with VPN - what you're seeing is ad tracking...

VPN won't stop that