Downloaded and installed Brave for the first time.
Selected a country through OvpnSpider VPN, which on the phone’s setting is set to “Always on” and “Block connections without VPN”.
Got on Reddit’s website through Brave (no websites had been browsed on it).
Created a new account with a new random username and a new random email.
Selected a few random recommended interests that I never have before like “AskReddit” and “Funny”.
Just browsing through the feed and all of a sudden I see posts from a sub that’s the actual country that I’m in being recommends, out of all the countries in the world.
I mean I would probably start with the Chinese owned VPN. Even if you believe the no logs claim (why would you?) they can still be compelled to share user data with the Chinese government.
Ahhh! If this is true then this might be it (or one of the ways). Shows my particular city. Are they seeing the same?
EDIT: I changed my timezone, deleted all history, cleared data (basically reset the browser to factory settings), logged back into Reddit… However, not only still being recommended my actual location content and not my timezone one, but I’m now being suggested pretty niche stuff that I consumed on my other Reddit on my other device (that didn’t use VPN). Absolutely zero connection between not only the to reddit accounts but the two devices as well…accept for the WiFi. But never used the new reddit device without VPN and never used the other one with VPN (so no common IP). Thoughts?