Five ways to achieve privacy online

As the Internet continues to evolve, and
smartphone platforms help us to accomplish more of the communications
we make each day, there is a growing focus on privacy for digital and
online activities.

People want to feel like they are safe
and secure online, not like they’re being monitored all of the time in
sneaky, deliberate ways. To that end, Techopedia says many users are
looking to defend themselves with technologies that will help them
browse the Internet or use digital applications with some measure of
privacy and anonymity. In fact, there are some easy ways to change your
web surfing habits to get more privacy online.

Changing browser settings

One of the first steps to making your
Internet use more private is to look at all available browser settings
that can change how public your online activities are. Some browsers
have a dedicated privacy mode that you can turn on in order to browse
the web in a less visible way.

Users can also change the ways that
online session data containers called “cookies”are controlled or stored –
typically, different websites create cookies in order to track users.
They promote these cookies as helping to personalise or customise the
webpage for a given user – but increasingly, cookies are also used to
deliver personal information to third parties. So users who value
privacy over convenience are likely to instruct their browsers to clear
all cookies on a regular basis, which helps quite a lot with Internet
privacy.

Sandboxing and alternative search practices

Another way to change your Internet
footprint is with a practice called sandboxing, which generally refers
to containing certain online activities and walling them off from
others. One common example is the use of Facebook.

Facebook is such a social media giant,
and so many people use it. It has really become a household name for
both personal and enterprise use – but it’s also well known for being
one of the biggest telltales of the web, spreading your private
information out to buyers and other parties. So some experts recommend
using one dedicated browser for Facebook, and another browser for other
online activity – this will limit the data that Facebook can collect
about you when you’re not actively on its website.

Others also suggest limited use of
Google – its search engine, its private user drive and other services –
to increase web invisibility. Alternative search engines like Duck Duck
Go can help make your search

VPN

When it comes to shielding your online activity from the public, the Virtual Private Network is an excellent way to go.

The VPN tunnels act to encrypt data from
a source, and decrypt it at its destination. By using one of these
privacy tools, you can make sure that outside parties don’t have access
to the data that you are sending as it flows through a local area
network.

Another plus with the VPNs is that they
are commonly acknowledged to be legitimate online security tools, as
they are often used for enterprise activities. So it’s not going to seem
strange or eccentric for you to use the VPN to protect personal private
data as well. The VPN is particularly useful when you are accessing the
Internet through an open public “hot spot” because it’s so easy for
hackers to intercept the data as it moves to and from your computer. But
even at home, you can be vulnerable to this kind of activity without
encryption. There are many free VPN services out there to choose from.

Tor

Another common privacy strategy is the use of something called Tor, which stands for “The Onion Router.”

Using a global network of volunteer
infrastructure, Tor makes data largely untraceable back to an individual
user. The principle of onion routing involves encrypting communications
in the application layer.

Encrypt chat and email

Another helpful tip is to use available
technologies to make your chats and emails more private through
encryption. A tool called Cryptocat can help with online chatting.
Mailvelope is an application that can help users to encrypt their
emails. Temporary email addresses can also help by negating the need to
give out your real email address in order to view or post content on
websites that require registration.

As the debate rages on Internet privacy,
check out all of these options for changing the ways that you access
the Internet and protecting yourself from some of the more egregious
forms of data collection. Sometimes, a little privacy just makes one
feel a little better about routine web activity, especially these days,
as cybersecurity becomes a real hot topic for governments, businesses
and everyone else.

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