Who can see your browsing right now?
24 Jun 2026
I get this question a lot, so let me answer it plainly.
Right now, as you browse, several different parties can see parts of what you're doing. The exact list depends on where you are and what you're using — but here's the general picture.
Your internet provider
All your traffic routes through their network. They can see every domain you visit — not the specific pages on HTTPS sites, but the sites themselves. Health searches, finance sites, news you read. They have a timed, dated log of it.
In the US and several other countries, they're legally permitted to sell that data. Some do.
The websites you visit
Every site you visit knows you were there — your IP address, your browser, your device, how long you stayed, what you clicked. Many also carry third-party trackers that follow you to the next site, and the one after that.
Your network administrator (if you're at work or school)
If you're on a managed network, the administrator can typically see the same view your ISP has at home — domains visited, times, device identifiers. Some corporate networks go further and inspect traffic in more detail.
Other people on public Wi-Fi
Open networks — coffee shops, airports, hotels — are unencrypted at the network level. Other users on the same network can potentially intercept unencrypted traffic. Incognito doesn't change this. HTTPS helps but doesn't close it entirely.
What actually changes this
A VPN removes your ISP from the picture. Your traffic goes through an encrypted tunnel — your provider sees that you're connected to a VPN server, nothing more. For public Wi-Fi, it encrypts everything leaving your device, so other users on the network can't intercept it.
It doesn't make you invisible to websites you visit — they still know you're there. It doesn't stop ad tracking from cookies. But it removes the party with the broadest view of your behaviour: the company routing all your traffic.
I've been testing a few options and I'll have a proper recommendation in the next issue. In the meantime — if the above list is longer than you expected, it's worth thinking about.
