Secure your internet history with military-grade encryption cheaper than buying one cup of coffee a month

The small print states that these brands can happily share details of your web browsing habits with third parties, who pass your information to data brokers, which piece together comprehensive profiles of what you like, want, and need.

Those profiles get sold to advertisers, which explains why you see targeted ads following you everywhere online. It's a whole chain of companies profiting from your private internet activity.

Thankfully, there is a solution.

Virtual Private Networks, more commonly referred to as VPNs, can encrypt everything you do online before it reaches your broadband provider, making it impossible for them to monetise what you do online.

How does this work? VPNs create a secure, encrypted tunnel between your device and a server. Everything beamed from your device is encrypted, preventing third parties from spying on your activity. Whoever supplies your Wi-Fi connection can still see that you're using the internet and how much data you're consuming. However, there's no way of knowing which websites you're visiting, what you're searching for, or what you're streaming.

Sound good? ExpressVPN uses something called 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard, which security experts worldwide trust to protect sensitive information.

It's used by governments and the military to protect top-secret digital assets, thanks to the vast 2^256 key space, which makes this standard practically unbreakable with current technology.

With the encryption up and running, your provider sees nothing but gibberish — an unreadable jumble of text that mixes letters, numbers, and symbols. This security feature covers everything, from the sites you visit to how long you spend on each one. It hides what you download, the games you play, and streaming services you use.

Aside from the security benefits, there are additional perks.

Some internet providers might slow your connection speed when certain network-intensive activities are detected, like streaming or playing online games at peak times. With a VPN masking your activity, they can't use content-based throttling against you anymore — something that can be a particular issue on Wi-Fi networks on University campuses, coffee shops, and more.

A VPN doesn't protect you from everything, though. If you're logged into Google while searching, Google can still link your searches to your account even through a VPN connection. The same goes for social media. Logging into Facebook while connected to a VPN server will not stop Facebook from seeing your posts and activity.

Likewise, payment details remain visible to processors as well. That means your bank or card company can still trace transactions back to you.

The key to protecting yourself is choosing a VPN service that doesn't keep logs of your activity. Some providers claim they don't collect data, but haven't proved it independently.

Look for services that have undergone proper audits from reputable firms. ExpressVPN has been examined multiple times by KPMG, which confirmed the company genuinely keeps no logs of user activity.

The service has also passed security reviews from PwC, Cure53, F-Secure, and Praetorian. These audits covered everything from privacy policies to app security.

ExpressVPN operates from the British Virgin Islands, a jurisdiction with no data retention laws requiring companies to store user information. That matters when government agencies come asking for data.

The company publishes reports twice yearly showing how many data requests it receives and how it responds. Most come from government agencies, but ExpressVPN honours none because it genuinely has nothing to share.

Subscribe to ExpressVPN and you'll be able to install and run this award-winning VPN on up to 10 devices, including iPhone, Android, iPad, Linux, Windows, and Fire TV Stick, to name a few.

With the latest discount, ExpressVPN costs just £2.49 a month.

Unsure about whether you'll get enough use from a VPN? ExpressVPN includes a quibble-free 30-day guarantee on all of its subscriptions.

With 24/7 customer support, you'll be able to talk to someone from any time zone to get a full refund if you're unhappy with the experience on your devices. Yes, ExpressVPN is that confident.