Practical online privacy

How to protect your privacy on the web in about two minutes

Online privacy, the services you use online, and your time are all important. In about two minutes per device you can reduce collection of your personal data online without otherwise changing your behavior.

Adjust your expectations

Your data online isn’t safe. You search Google for symptoms of illness, your friends put tagged photos of you on Facebook, Twitter notices which political tweets you like: all of this is stored, sold, available for subpoena, and ready to be stolen. Thousands of very smart people are figuring how to collect and use your data for their profit.

Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we’re doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance

— Bruce Schneier, The Value of Privacy

So much money is being made selling your data that companies and governments will not voluntarily change. Don’t like this? Donate to the Electronic Frontier Foundation who fights every day for our online rights.

Protect your desktop browser

If you care about online privacy, your best bet is definitely Firefox but Chrome is okay if you already use it. The best privacy browser extensions aren’t yet available for other browsers.

Now simply install these three browser extensions:

• Privacy Badger: blocks spying ads and invisible trackers based on behaviors and configures some privacy settings
• uBlock Origin, Firefox or Chrome: blocks spying ads and invisible trackers based on blacklists and configures some privacy settings
• HTTPS Everywhere: encrypts communications with many major websites

On rare occasion, you may have trouble fully loading a website. If this happens, open the page in a “Private browsing” or “Incognito” window where your privacy will be less protected but the website will work.

If you want to take things to the next level, be sure to use Firefox since its maker Mozilla is not incentivized to track you, while Google-backed Chrome is. If you’re even more serious: donate to the EFF, use non-tracking DuckDuckGo so Google can’t track your searches, and stop using Facebook.

Protect your iOS device

First tell iOS to limit information it gives to advertisers and tell Safari to ask websites not to track you:

• Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services > Turn off Location-Based Apple Ads
• Settings > Privacy > Advertising > Turn on Limit Ad Tracking
• Settings > Safari > Turn on Do Not Track

Further limiting in-app tracking is very difficult.

Next, protect your web browsing by installing Firefox Focus, press the gear and turn on Safari integration, following the resulting instructions. Continue using Safari as usual (other browsers will not be protected).

Protect your Android device

First tell Android to limit information it gives to advertisers:

• Google Settings > Ads > Turn on Opt out of interest-based ads
• Settings > Location > Turn off Google Location History, and Delete Location History

Further limiting in-app tracking is very difficult.

Next, protect your web browsing by installing and using Firefox. After installing, install these three extensions:

• Privacy Badger: blocks spying ads and invisible trackers based on behaviors and configures some privacy settings
• uBlock Origin: blocks spying ads and invisible trackers based on blacklists and configures some privacy settings
• HTTPS Everywhere: encrypts communications with many major websites

Now browse as usual, in Firefox!

Alternatives

Abine Blur, formerly DoNotTrackMe, works on Chrome, iOS, and Android. Abine’s business model and privacy policy seem okay to me, but I’m slightly hesitant to trust a venture capital-backed privacy company since they may be incentivized to change their data collection policies in the future.

Avoid these “privacy guards”

Two companies make browser extensions and mobile apps for privacy protection, but I do not recommend them. While the browser extensions and apps I recommend above are backed by the non-profits Mozilla and EFF, the for-profit companies below are strongly incentivized to share the same data they claim to protect, and there is some evidence they do so.

Ghostery claims to protect you from online tracking, but has a deeply troubling business model: they block other online trackers, but collect your data themselves and then sell it. They try to trick you, plain and simple. Don’t use Ghostery.

Disconnect charges for some of their services which might make that business model viable without tracking users, but they’re experimenting with advertising for revenue. Given how much their online advertising partners rely on invasive tracking, this creates a conflict of interest that is better avoided.