Direct answer

A VPN can hide certain network-level identifiers (most notably your public IP address) from websites and observers along the connection path, but it doesn’t reliably “hide your device ID” in every sense of that phrase.

Device ID can mean different things—an IP address, a platform-specific identifier, a mobile advertising ID, a browser or device fingerprint, or an identifier created through cookies and logins. A VPN mainly changes where your traffic appears to come from (through the VPN’s IP), not whether websites can identify the same browser/device using other signals.

What a VPN typically changes

At a high level, a VPN routes your traffic through a VPN server. From the perspective of many websites, your requests arrive from the VPN server rather than directly from your home network. In practice, this can:

  • Reduce exposure of your original IP address to the website you visit.
  • Prevent local networks or some intermediate observers from seeing the destination websites at the same level of detail.

However, these effects do not automatically remove other identification mechanisms that can be tied to your browser or account.

Where device identification can still happen

Even with a VPN, websites and apps may still recognize you through:

  • Cookies and site data that persist across sessions.
  • Logged-in accounts that tie activity to a user identity.
  • Browser/device fingerprinting signals (such as browser settings, installed features, fonts, or rendering behavior).
  • Other trackers that run in the browser and store identifiers.

In other words, the VPN can change the network location you present, but it generally isn’t designed to prevent every form of device/browser identification.

Key limitation and the main exception

The VPN’s main limitation is that it does not control how websites create or store identifiers inside your browser, and it may not affect identifiers created by logged-in services.

If by “device ID” you specifically mean your public IP address, then a VPN often helps. If you mean a persistent identifier created by cookies, account logins, or fingerprinting, then a VPN alone usually isn’t enough.

Practical checks you can do

You can verify what’s being exposed in your own setup by:

  • Checking whether your visible IP address changes while the VPN is on.
  • Testing whether a website still recognizes you after clearing cookies or using a fresh browser profile.
  • Comparing behavior across different browsers or profiles while keeping the same VPN setting.

These checks won’t prove that no identification is possible, but they help clarify which identifiers are affected versus which remain.

Note on uncertainty

Because “device ID” is ambiguous and depends on the website, browser, and tracking methods involved, no single yes/no answer applies to all scenarios. A VPN often changes network-level visibility, not the full set of identification techniques available on the web.