Quick Guide to Protect your Online Privacy

Online privacy has become an important factor for every individual using the internet. If someone is motivated enough, he will try to break all types of encryption and get your sensitive data. The necessity for online privacy has increased. Just by taking a few precautions, your online information can be made secure and safe.

Need for Online Privacy

There are many advertising companies that try to clutter us with their advertisements, at our expense. There are many countries that stop individuals from visiting their social network sites by censoring their content. Sometimes, even harmless sits are not made accessible by government entities and ISP’s. There are many malware hackers who try to access our accounts and steal sensitive data from individuals and companies, to be used for their own selfish purposes. Safeguarding data through online privacy has become a necessity.

Guide to Online Privacy

Securing online privacy is easy and an alert mind will go a long way to protect all sensitive information.

1. Proxy, VPN, and Tor Services

By creating anonymity while using the Internet, you can gain online privacy. This can be done by either using proxies, VPN or the Tor network. They help to hide your internet usage from the ISP or the Internet Service Provider. By using these services, you can hide your location and your IP address. They help you to bypass all ISP filters. You can gain access to all content that is geo-blocked. The VPN, Proxy and Tor services help you to access websites of other countries. It also gives protection when you access public Wi-Fi facilities. They provide high anonymity online. Tor Network provides free usage by which no information has to be provided to anyone. In VPN, information has to be given to the provider and he will know your online activities. Tor and VPN can also be used together.

2. Search Engines

The Search Engines have much information about you, such as the IP address, the time of using the website, the search items, etc. This information from the Search Engines is used by the web page owners and advertising owners of websites. The internet history is used by them for their own individual purposes. The information is also provided to government and court if requested. By avoiding Search Engines that collects your personal information, you can get online privacy. Such Search Engines like DuckDuckGo do not collect data nor do they use the Filter Bubble. They help you to remain anonymous while making use of these search engines to browse for various information requirements and for business purposes.

3. Online Purchases

While making purchases online, you will have to give much information about yourself, when you make payments online. But by using Bitcoin or online virtual currency, you can make payments and retain your anonymity. In the days to come, several types of virtual currencies will come into regular use for making payments.  Prepaid credit cards can also be used to make online payments.

4. Web Browser

Web browsers such as Internet Explorer and Google Chrome are not very secure regarding protection of user information. To protect your online privacy, you can make use of Firefox or other web browsers to protect your security.  There are browser add-ons, such as HTTPS Everywhere and No Script that prevent browsing cookies from being installed into browsers.

5. Email

Emails are constantly scanned by email services such as Yahoo Mail and Gmail. Your private email is under constant surveillance. There are surveillance agencies appointed by the Government to scan messages to identify terrorists. To gain online privacy, while using the email services, you can use alternate providers. You can use cloaking technology or encryption technology for sending and receiving email, to protect all your personal information, such as your email id and credit card details.

Tips for Online Privacy

1. Make use of VPN services to keep your download activities a private one. They help you to keep all information secure and anonymous.
2. Encrypt all data on your devices so that your data cannot be accessed by any third person who may misuse your private information. Even if your laptop or Smartphone gets lost or stolen, sensitive information stored in them may not be easily accessed by others.
3. Sometimes, even friends, colleagues or family may misuse information from your devices. You should always be alert about such activities and keep your password secretive. You can also have different passwords for each activity. This will help in keeping information secretive.

All types of personal information and sensitive information have to be protected. Taking precautionary steps can protect you against data theft, malware, and privacy protection.