Protecting your privacy while surfing the web has become a hard task. However, you can achieve that by adopting any or a combination of these five methods.
How to Stay Anonymous Online
It is becoming harder every day for people to maintain their privacy online as corporations and government agencies are after our details for advertising, surveillance, and other purposes.
However, there are some services one could use and steps you could take to ensure that you stay private anytime you are accessing the internet. Let’s look at five ways to help you achieve that.
Five ways to help maintain your privacy online.
1] Use a VPN
This is perhaps the most important method you can apply if you are seeking privacy online. Virtual private networks (VPN) are services that allow people to access the internet anonymously, ensuring that they maintain their privacy.
A VPN is a secure tunnel between a device and the internet, protecting a user’s online traffic from censorship, interference, and snooping. VPN is especially useful when using public WIFI.
Accessing critical information such as bank accounts, credit card details, and more are dangerous when using a public WIFI. However, with the help of top VPNs, your privacy can be maintained.
The VPNs encrypt your communication, thus, making it impossible for others to intercept your information. It is advisable to use paid VPN services such as NordVPN over free ones to get better protection.
2] Enable private browsing
Another method you can employ to keep your information private online is to activate “private browsing” on your browser. Also known as the incognito mode, virtually all major web browsers have a private browsing mode in their settings.
The private browsing mode deletes temporary files, cooks, and browsing history once you close the window. The incognito mode allows you to browse the internet without storing local information that can be retrieved later.
At a time when companies are interested in knowing the sites you visit, the items you buy, the things you like, your social media friends, and more, regularly clearing cookies, and other online details would help in maintaining your privacy.
However, it is worthy to note that private browsing isn’t completely safe when you are concerned about keeping your privacy online. VPNs are much better options if you seek complete privacy.
3] Tor browser
Tor is a software that allows you to surf the web anonymously. The software utilizes a technique called onion routing, which conceals the data about your online activity. The Tor network comprises of volunteers who use their computers as nodes.
When you use the Tor browser to access a website, your information doesn’t easily travel to their server. The software creates a path via randomly assigned nodes which your data will follow before it gets to the destined server.
Essentially, Tor routes your internet traffic via multiple servers between your device and the destination, making it hard for anyone to know your location or identity. Thus, your activity remains hidden when you access the internet.
4] Set up a two-factor authentication
Using a two-step authenticator (2FA) can serve as another layer of security to your online activity. 2FA will help protect you from people snooping on or trying to hack your social media or other relevant accounts.
The two-step verification is a popular security system where users are required to enter a code sent to their phones or an authenticator app before they can access their accounts. While it is not exactly a system that fully protects your privacy online, the 2FA ensures that others don’t access your accounts.
This is particularly useful for important accounts like cryptocurrency exchanges, wallets, emails, password managers, and more.
5] Limit social media sharing
This is an odd but effective method of protecting your privacy online. Sharing too much of your activities on social media could see the wrong people having access to your personal information. Thus, it is advisable that you limit the number of people who view your updates when you share information on social media networks.
If you are serious about staying private, then ensure that only your friends can see your activities on Facebook. You can implement similar settings on Twitter and other social media networks.
Conclusion
Staying private online is a challenge in this age as businesses continually target your personal information for advertisement purposes, government agencies for surveillance, and hackers for malicious purposes. However, using the methods reviewed above or a combination of them will help you browse the net more safely.
