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Relay is a private demonstration page, not a VPN provider, and is not affiliated with any company. Nothing here recommends a specific service.
VPN services
A VPN moves who can watch you. It does not make you invisible.
It builds an encrypted tunnel from your device to a server the provider runs, and that server makes the requests on your behalf. Your network operator stops seeing where you go — and the provider starts. Everything below follows from that one swap.
What actually changes
The same route, with and without
Three parties can see something about your traffic. Switching the relay on does not remove an observer — it changes which one it is.
Node 1
The network you are on
Sees every site you connect to, when, and how much data. On a café or hotel network that is whoever runs it. Modern sites are encrypted, so the operator sees the destination but not the page.
Node 2
Your internet provider
Sees the same list of destinations, tied to your account. In the United States there is no general prohibition on providers using that.
Node 3
The site itself
Sees your real IP address, roughly where you are, and whatever your browser and your logged-in account tell it.
This is the whole product, stated plainly. A VPN is worth paying for when you trust the provider more than you trust the network you are on — a hotel wifi, a shared flat, an employer's connection. It is worth nothing against a site you are logged into, because you told that site who you are.
Before you buy
What it does, and what it is sold as doing
Everything in the second half is a claim VPN marketing makes routinely. None of it is true, and none of it is controversial among people who work on this.
It does
Hide destinations from the local network
The strongest real use. On a network you do not control, the operator stops learning which sites you visit.
It does
Change your apparent location
Sites see the VPN's address. Useful for reaching your own country's services while travelling, and unreliable for streaming catalogues, which actively block known VPN ranges.
It does
Stop your provider building a browsing profile
Your internet provider sees an encrypted connection to one address instead of a list of sites. The provider you chose sees the list instead.
It does not
Make you anonymous
Anonymity is not a product you can buy for a few dollars a month. Logging in, cookies, browser fingerprinting and payment details all identify you regardless of the tunnel.
It does not
Protect you from malware or phishing
A tunnel carries whatever you send down it. Fake sites, malicious downloads and phishing email are unaffected by encryption in transit.
It does not
Make public wifi safe
It helps, but the underlying claim is dated: HTTPS already encrypts the contents of almost every site. The VPN hides which sites, not what was on them.
The choosing checklist
Eleven questions to ask about any VPN before you pay for it — the ones that have verifiable answers rather than marketing ones.
- What an independent audit does and does not prove
- Why jurisdiction matters less than people say, and what matters more
- The leak tests you can run yourself in two minutes
When it genuinely helps
Six situations where the trade is worth making
The honest answer is that most people do not need one running all day. These are the cases where it earns its cost.
Networks you do not control
Hotels, cafés, airports, shared housing
Anywhere the operator is unknown to you and could log or inject. This is the original use and still the best one.
Travel
Reaching your own country's services
Banking and government portals sometimes block or challenge foreign addresses. Connecting back to your home region avoids that friction.
Employer or landlord networks
Keeping personal browsing personal
A workplace or building network can see destinations. If you would rather it did not, this is exactly the problem a VPN solves.
Journalists and at-risk users
Raising the cost of casual observation
Not a substitute for real operational security, but a meaningful layer against passive network-level collection.
Price checking
Comparing what others are quoted
Some pricing varies by location. A VPN lets you see another region's price — though many sites use your account rather than your address.
Home network access
Reaching your own devices remotely
A VPN into your own home network is a different and unambiguously useful thing from a commercial subscription.
How to choose
Five questions with verifiable answers
Ignore speed claims and encryption acronyms; every mainstream provider uses the same handful of protocols. These are the things that actually differ.
Has it been independently audited, and can you read the report?
A no-logs claim is a promise. An audit by an outside firm is evidence, but only for the scope and the date it covers — read what was examined, not just that an audit happened.
Who owns it, and do they say so plainly?
A number of VPN brands share owners, and some are owned by companies whose other business is advertising data. Ownership that takes effort to discover is itself an answer.
What does the logging policy say it keeps, in specifics?
“We do not log” is marketing. A usable policy names what is retained — connection timestamps, bandwidth totals, payment records — and for how long.
Does it handle DNS itself, and is there a kill switch?
If DNS queries leak outside the tunnel, your destinations leak with them. A kill switch stops traffic when the tunnel drops instead of quietly reverting to the open network.
What happens when you stop paying?
Check how to cancel before you subscribe, and whether the app keeps running. Recurring security subscriptions are among the hardest to unwind.
A free VPN is not free. Running servers costs money, so if you are not paying, the business model is usually your data or your bandwidth — which is the exact thing you installed it to avoid.
Straight answers
Questions people actually ask
- Do I need one all the time?
- Most people do not. On your own home network the main thing a VPN changes is that your provider sees less, and you may not consider that worth a permanent subscription. On networks you do not control, it is worth turning on.
- Is it legal?
- Using a VPN is legal in the United States and most countries. A handful restrict or ban them. Whatever you do through one is subject to the same law as doing it without one.
- Will it slow things down?
- Somewhat, always. Your traffic takes a longer path through an extra server. A well-run service on a nearby server is usually unnoticeable for browsing and noticeable for large transfers.
- Does it stop targeted advertising?
- Barely. Advertising follows accounts, cookies and browser fingerprints far more than IP addresses. A content blocker and separate browser profiles do more for that than a tunnel does.
- Is the free one in my browser the same thing?
- No. Browser proxies cover that browser's traffic only, not the rest of the device, and many are simple proxies without the encryption a VPN provides.
- Does a VPN protect my passwords?
- Not in any way that matters today. Sites already encrypt logins over HTTPS. Unique passwords and two-factor authentication protect accounts; a tunnel does not.
Go straight to the source
Independent references, none of them selling a VPN
- EFF — Surveillance Self-DefensePlain guidance on what network-level protection does and does not achieve.
- CISA — secure your home networkThe federal cyber agency's own baseline advice.
- FTC — online privacyConsumer-side privacy guidance from the regulator.
- Mozilla — how HTTPS worksWhy most traffic is already encrypted without a VPN.
- DNS leak testCheck whether your queries are leaving the tunnel.
- Tor ProjectIf your actual requirement is anonymity rather than privacy from a network.
One email, then we leave you alone
Take the checklist before you compare a single provider
Eleven questions with verifiable answers, and the two leak tests worth running on whatever you end up with.
The choosing checklist
- What an independent audit does and does not prove
- Why jurisdiction matters less than people say, and what matters more
- The leak tests you can run yourself in two minutes