Unless you are looking to buy uranium to build smart bombs, who cares? Do you do anything nefarious that you need to hide? I use Ad Block Plus on Chrome and I never see ads. Also You Tube Blocker so I don't see ads. As far as anybody "knowing" about me, my life is an open book and if they asked, I would tell them!

Those trackers track your IP, not you. They know that xxx.xx.xx.xxx visited their site and when xxx.xx.xx.xxx gets online again they send an ad. VPNs hide your LOCAL IP address, the 192.168.xx.xx or the 10.10.xx.xx but your end connection point, your WAN IP, is going to be the same unless you hard reset your modem. And even then, it will revert to the last known IP unless you stay offline for 24 hours and 1 minute.

Way too much paranoia out there about "privacy". Nobody's life is private.

There is one member here who uses a pseudonym. However, he also has a web page. With minimal internet knowledge and skill in using resources, I can find out anything I want about anybody. I can find their home address, determine what county that address is in, then visit the court system for that county and get their record if they have one. (It is called PUBLIC record for a reason.)

There was a point where people fought for freedom of information, so far that there is a Freedom Of Information Act. Now that information is free, there is a lot of whining about how much information is out there. Pick a team and play for it.

I am using the new 1040XTRAEZ form this year. It has just 2 lines.

1. How much did you make in 2023?
2. Send it to us.