No perfect way to protect privacy

Now that Congress has given internet service providers the green light to keep tabs on your online activities and do as they wish with that information, you might be wondering what you can do about it.

The good news is there are two different technical tools you can use — the Tor system and virtual private networks, or VPNs. The bad news is both tools can be difficult to use and VPNs can be costly.

Perhaps the most popular answer for consumers is to sign up for a VPN.

A virtual private network is a service that connects your computer or other device with a server on the internet. VPN services typically encrypt all the traffic between your computer or device and their servers and routes all of your online traffic — web browsing, email, videos — through those servers before sending it on to its eventual destination.

Because your data is scrambled, your broadband provider typically can’t see what sites you’re visiting or what you’re doing online when you use a VPN. They also can’t see what’s in your email or what’s on the websites you’re visiting. Most VPNs are available for desktop computers and both Android and Apple smartphones. Some can be connected directly to your internet router so that all traffic through your home network passes through them.

But VPNs aren’t a perfect solution for protecting privacy. They can be difficult to configure and use. They can slow your access to online sites and services. And security experts strongly advise users to stay away from free VPNs.

More disturbingly, you may be less secure using a VPN than you would be otherwise. Security experts have noted that the encryption keys used by some popular virtual private networks are known and easily broken, meaning it wouldn’t be hard for someone to snoop on data you sent through them.

The other option is to use Tor, which works kind of like a multistage VPN. Tor routes your online data through multiple servers and encrypts it along the way. So, like a regular VPN, it obscures your online activities from your broadband provider; all that provider can detect is that you are using Tor.

But Tor also helps shield your activities from the servers through which your data passes. And the last server in the chain, the one that connects you to your destination, doesn’t know your internet address, so it can’t tell who is trying to reach that site.

Unlike many VPNs, Tor is free to use and it’s something of a gold standard in shielding online activity.

But it too has its shortcomings. Because online traffic sent through Tor goes through multiple servers, it can be painfully slow to use, so much so that it’s typically not good to use if you’re trying to stream videos or wanting to compete with other people head-tohead in online games. Some sites even block Tor users.

Tor is typically accessed through a custom web browser. Although you can configure your computer to route your traffic through the Tor network, that’s much more difficult for the average user to do. And if you’re on an iPhone, it’s basically impossible. An app called Orbot allows Android users to connect to the Tor network and use multiple apps through it.

Indeed, when it comes to protecting your activities from your broadband provider, the best solution is not a technical one but a political one — the one the FCC already came up with, and that Republicans in Congress have now chucked out the window.