How to Protect Your Online Privacy and Data
We live in a digital age and in this new digital age, for the first time in human history there is value to something that can be acquired for free. And that is your online data.
This blog post will give you the necessary steps to protect your online data and your privacy. All of this information has been acquired from Privacy Tools website.
Numerous companies and governments track your online movements everyday across many different channels whether it is from your smart phone, laptop, smart watch or smart speakers. These trackers can begin within your browser, search engine that you use or websites that you visit.
VPN — Virtual Private Networks
Your data can now be sold from the Internet Service Provider to advertisers thanks to the dismantlement of Net Neutrality. One of the immediate ways to protect your online data is to use a VPN service when browsing the internet. When using a VPN, your internet network goes through an encrypted connection to a VPN server. This prevents your ISP from seeing any of your data since it is now encrypted and hidden through the VPN tunnel. You can either purchase a yearly service such as Nord VPN or configure a router to use Open VPN which is a free open platform.
Browser Recommendation and Configuration
Tor Browser is your choice if you need an extra layer of anonymity. It’s a modified version of Firefox, it comes with pre-installed privacy add-ons, encryption and an advanced proxy. This browser bounces your internet connection through serveral servers, known as nodes, which is why is why it is called the onion network as your network is under many layers.
However, please be cautious when using sensitive information and passwords as it might be possible for these exit nodes to see your information if the websites you are visiting are not HTTPS protected.
Firefox is a great browser as not only does is respect your browsing data, but you can also configure it’s settings and download add-ons to further enhance your privacy online. Here are configurations to disable WebRTC leaks which can leak your real ip address while using a VPN:
Explained:
- Enter “about:config” in the firefox address bar and press enter.
- Press the button “I’ll be careful, I promise!”
- Search for “media.peerconnection.enabled”
- Double click the entry, the column “Value” should now be “false”
- Done. Do the WebRTC leak test again.
If you want to make sure every single WebRTC related setting is really disabled change these settings:
- media.peerconnection.turn.disable = true
- media.peerconnection.use_document_iceservers = false
- media.peerconnection.video.enabled = false
- media.peerconnection.identity.timeout = 1
Further browser configurations can be found in Privacy Tools.
Firefox Privacy Add-Ons
Automatically Delete Cookies with “Cookie AutoDelete.” Automatically removes cookies when they are no longer used by open browser tabs. With the cookies, lingering sessions, as well as information used to spy on you, will be expunged.
Encryption with “HTTPS Everywhere.” A Firefox, Chrome, and Opera extension that encrypts your communications with many major websites, making your browsing more secure. A collaboration between The Tor Project and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Stop cross-site requests with “uMatrix”. Many websites integrate features which let other websites track you, such as Facebook Like Buttons or Google Analytics. uMatrix gives you control over the requests that websites make to other websites. This gives you greater and more fine-grained control over the information that you leak online.
To use uMatrix, click the icon of the add-on in your browser. A window will appear. You can start off by clicking the top of the “all” button on the left corner which will make all rows green and allow all integrated features to be enabled in order to communicate with your browser. Click the bottom half of a buttons of a specific row/website, this will disable all features of that website such as cookies, css, image, media, script, XHR, frame and others. This will stop cross-site requests to these websites in the site you are visiting.
Be in total control with “NoScript Security Suite”. Highly customizable plugin to selectively allow Javascript, Java, and Flash to run only on websites you trust. Not for casual users, it requires technical knowledge to configure.
This add-on simply disables Javascript in the website you are visiting. Many online trackers are written with a line of Javascript code in the website. These are used to track your every move. The add-on will automatically disable all Javascript code. To temporarily allow Javascript of a certain website you can click the S with the clock next to it. To permantly enable all Javascript code across multiple websites of that specific domain you can click the S to the far right.
Private Search Engine
Lastly, DuckDuckGo is a great private search engine that will not track or save an searches associated to you. This prevents you from being targeted for specific advertising based on your search history.
Conclusion
The debate of how far companies can go to use and sell your internet browsing behaviors will surely continue. While hopefully more laws will be in-placed to surely protect our online data, there are still ways to browse the internet privately.
