DNS, private browsing and VPNs offer different kinds of protection

These tools protect different parts of your internet use.

Encrypted DNS can hide the names of sites you look up from people on the same network, but your provider may still see the sites’ IP addresses and connection times.

Private browsing mainly clears some history and cookies from your device.

A VPN changes what your provider and websites can see about your connection, but cookies, trackers and logged-in accounts can still identify you.

That matters because using one tool alone does not make you anonymous.