My favourite privacy centred extensions and applications
Trying to strike a balance between staying secure online while still getting things done is hard. Especially when most of the stuff we do nowadays is online. There is sometimes simply no choice but to share a good amount of our information with companies and organizations. To be recognized, you have to be okay with promoting yourself. To promote yourself, you need to put information about yourself out there. The only thing you can do is make sure sensitive information stays protected.
There are several applications and browser extensions that help with online security. These combined with some good security practices can make a significant difference to the amount of privacy you have on the internet. This post will cover some of my favourite applications and extensions for online security, and I’ll cover some security best practices in the next post.
- uBlock Origin:
This one seems obvious, right? Use an adblocker. It reduces the amount of clutter on the screen and keeps things clean. However, uBlock is a browser extension that does more than just that. It can be configured to block all 3rd party scripts. This means that if you visit a website, you will not see content from domains other than the website itself. Now, this sometimes creates issues. It can break sites that require 3rd party scripts to function. This problem is addressed in the extension itself. It has options to allow content from specific trusted domains and saves them. If you want to shift computers or browsers, just download a copy of the backup from the extension and upload it wherever you want it synced.
2. Bitwarden:
Bitwarden is an open-source password manager. Password managers are an absolute necessity if you have several online accounts. Email accounts, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Amazon…the list goes on and on. If you work with social media, chances are you have multiple accounts on major social networks, which increases the need for a strong password manager.
Bitwarden is widely recommended by a lot of people in the infosec industry. It is both convenient and robust, and uses AES 256-bit encryption, widely regarded as unbreakable by current computers. It has browser extensions on Chrome, Firefox and Chromium-based browsers like Microsoft Edge and Brave, and has dedicated applications on Windows, macOS, Linux and Android. The Bitwarden vault can be configured to lock itself after a certain timeout duration and requires a master password to unlock it. As long as your master password is very strong and not simply guessable, your passwords are unlikely to be breached.
3. TOR Browser:
TOR stands for The Onion Router. The Tor Browser is an open-source browser that uses the TOR protocol to transfer data across the internet. Standard browsers send your web request to your ISP, and then to the destination server. This leaves your IP address vulnerable.
TOR takes a different approach. It encrypts your data with three layers of military-grade encryption and sends it through three different TOR nodes maintained by volunteers all around the globe. Each node has access only to the decryption key for one layer and the address of the next node. Only the final node has access to the address of the destination server, but it no longer has the information about the origin of the request, which is your computer. This method has been compared to peeling off the layers of an onion, earning TOR its name.
You might be wondering if all these nodes slow down TOR. You would be right in that case. TOR is much slower than a standard browser. It definitely shouldn’t be your go-to for HD video streaming. TOR is used mostly when you want privacy. For instance when you’re an author writing a crime thriller and want to know about the best ways to kill someone. You really don’t want to look like a deranged murderer to someone who goes through your ISP's logs. Or if you’re an activist in a country that heavily restricts internet usage, TOR might be a lifesaver. Or maybe you just want to visit some sites that you wouldn’t want to be traced back to you, TOR might be your solution.
TOR is not unhackable. It’s just that the encryption is so strong that it takes a lot of resources to trace a bad actor on TOR. But if you make an enemy out of a government or large organisation, it will take a lot more than just TOR to keep yourself safe.
4. HTTPS Everywhere:
This is one of my personal favourites. The main reason is its simplicity of usage. It’s a browser extension, that forces a website to use the HTTPS protocol instead of HTTP, which is less secure because the data is transferred unencrypted, allowing cybercriminals easy access to your data while it is transferred across the web. It prevents accidental access to unencrypted websites. The extension is available on Chrome, Firefox and Chromium-based browsers.
And that concludes my list of favourites. There are a few others that deserve mentions. I might write another post about those soon. If you think there are any extensions that deserve a mention, leave a comment :)
