You disable the VPN, they show “unprotected”, come on, I’m not really unprotected, why such a dramatic word, I just disabled the thing a little, I’m “disconnected” but it doesn’t mean I’m actually unprotected, the same way it doesn’t mean I’m actually protected if I’m using a VPN.
If that is true then why do VPN’s work to circumvent censorship or content restrictions that certain countries impose? I’m sure authoritarian governments are doing more than tracking a user’s IP, right? I honestly don’t know.
And of course no single thing is going to do everything but it is another layer of defence. The most important thing for privacy & security is your own behaviour: don’t doxx yourself on social media. Do not trust (big texh) companies where you are the product. Choose the right platform, browser, VPN, e-mail provider, etc. Keep your antivirus software updated. Say no to everything you can. Only allow minimal cookies. Don’t click weird links. Only fill in your personal data when you absolutely need to. Double check the sender’s email address. Etc etc.
And none of these are going to provide 100% privacy or security. But we can try to build layers around us.
floofloof is correct, a device will happily announce its true location with a few javascript snippets on a website… But when you say censorship and content restriction, you are talking about ISP level. Very few websites would enable censorship based on javascript results.
The VPN would mask all the traffic from the ISP, where the censorship occurs, so the website gives the content from whatever endpoint the VPN resides in. But that’s all it really achieves.