Protecting Your Internet Identity

Nothing in this world comes free, If you think the internet giants are providing you with free services then you are wrong. You are actually paying more than what you expected to pay for ‘those’ services.

Let’s look at the 10 simple tweaks you could implement to protect your privacy to maximum extent while you are browsing the web.

1. Free VPN service is a myth it boasts of giving you internet privacy but it actually works by selling your data. If you really care about your privacy you could use Tor which is free and most secure VPN till date or simply setup your own VPN service in a remote server.
2. Never leave DNS settings to automatic, doing this your ISP can trace all your web history even when you are in incognito mode. DNS is a sort of “phone book” that translates the domain you enter (www.google.com) in your browser into a computer readable IP. Instead set your DNS settings manually to privacy first DNS servers like Clouldflare, OpenDNS.
3. Use a opensource Ad Blocker like uBlock which blocks unwanted ads, trackers and also speeds up your browsing experience. If you can spend some and money you could set up pihole (opensource network wide ad blocker) on a Raspberry Pi which can block almost all the advertisements all over the network. You might me wondering what trackers are, did you ever notice that the items you had browsed before keep on following you via social media? It is the work of internet trackers.
4. Internet trackers work by seeding your internet browser with something called a cookie, which keep on tracking the websites you visit and selling the data to ecommerce companies like Amazon, Flipkart. You can block 3rd party cookies on your browsers to avoid tracking to some extent.
5. It is better to switch to more privacy oriented search engine and browser like DuckDuckGo and Firefox respectively and always try to use opensource software's which are built by public.
6. Maintain separate browsers, like one for financial transactions other for watching videos or normal surfing over the web. You can also tweak some of browser settings to improve security. Try to avoid using public Wi-Fi especially when doing internet transactions.
7. Try to avoid using oAuth : Sign up via Facebook/Google and use Two Factor authentication where ever possible, It is really convenient sometimes but you are actually giving up more information than required, notice what information is getting shared with the party.
8. Look out spam/malware links you would generally come across in mails or social media, Never click on a link you did not expect to receive even though it looks appealing, also limit your social media audience to the most possible extent. Always check for HTTPS in the URL bar, HTTPS indicates that the web page you are on is secure and can be trusted .
9. If you are using google account make sure you turn off your browsing history also turn off shared endorsements settings which could leak your personal data like your picture to advertising companies.
10. Be aware of your activity in social media sometimes those fun quizzes can squeeze your personal information like those you have answered in security questions during any signup.

Thanks for reading, please do share 😃