No matter what device you use to connect to the internet, unwanted parties will track your online activities. For instance, have you ever noticed that whenever you walk by a food joint or talk about a product with your friends, you will likely get an ad popping up on your social media almost instantly?
While you might think of it as a coincidence, the reality is, in fact, the opposite. Online trackers are not a myth; you and your information are being tracked as long as you are connected to the internet.
This online tracking is often used to sell you third-party ads and sometimes for surveillance purposes. However, such intricate monitoring violates online users’ privacy and should not be excused. Moreover, the apps you download on your smartphones also require permissions. You ought to be careful before granting every permission to them unnecessarily.
Furthermore, you ought to adopt the following practices if you wish to prevent online trackers from ever following you:
Browser Extensions
The easiest way to prevent online pop-up ads from following you is to download reliable browser extensions. There are numerous dependable extensions available online that can help you achieve this. These browser extensions will identify any third-party pop-ups and automatically keep them at bay. And you would not need to take any measures manually.
Get a VPN
Another helpful habit is relying on a VPN service to secure your connection. A VPN is a means to stay private on the web, ultimately keeping you safe from being tracked. A VPN makes this possible by hiding your IP address and swapping it with a virtual IP address from a different region. As a result, the website you visit assumes you are logging in from a different geographical region. And the moment you terminate your browsing session, your history, login credentials, and other information is wiped.
Moreover, you could also get a VPN extension Firefox or VPN Chrome extension to secure the traffic moving to and from your browser. Though only the traffic on the browser is secured, all other online activity will remain exposed.
Disable Third-Party Cookies
Several online platforms have cookies stored on your device. And unless you clear those cookies regularly, you will be tracked for a long time. You could get rid of cookies in one of two ways.
You could either disable third-party cookies permanently from your browser. This way, cookies won’t be stored on your device. And if you do not have cookies disabled, you should clear the cookies from the browser settings regularly.
Go Incognito
You could also consider going online using the incognito mode on your browser. When you are in incognito mode, your history and online activity are only available as long as the session is active. Once the session is terminated, your entire activity is wiped. Hence, you won’t be bombarded with irritating pop-up ads when you log online the next time since your data was not stored.
Turn to the right Search Engine
While you may be used to relying on Google for all your search queries, you might want to consider depending on other search engines if you wish to stop being tracked. Fortunately, there are some search engines out there that focus on a user’s privacy. For instance, you have DuckDuckGo. It is a fantastic internet browser with solid security and privacy protocols. This browser will not store your personal information or track your IP address. As a result, your data will not be sold to third parties. You can comfortably browse the internet with ease.
Tweak Your Privacy Settings
Going off the grid is virtually impossible. As such, it is not possible to stay completely safe from online trackers. That being said, you could still somewhat reduce the threat of online tracking by tweaking your privacy settings.
If you are on a mobile device, the best thing you could do is disable the location transmission instantly. This feature is the biggest contributor to online tracking, as it transmits your real-time location 24/7.
If you are on a computer, you will need to adjust the privacy settings on your internet browser. You will need to dig deep to see what websites have what kinds of permissions and restrict any unnecessary permissions you granted.
Switch Email Service Providers
You may be used to relying on a particular email service provider. While you might be comfortable using that email service, you might want to switch email service providers if you wish to stay safe from online trackers. Luckily, some email service providers still keep your information private. Email services such as ProtonMail offer end-to-end encryption protocols that ensure your information does not fall into the wrong hands online.
On a Final Note
Privacy is everyone’s right, both in the physical and the digital world, and you should not have to compromise your privacy because you do not know how to secure yourself. Hopefully, now that we have discussed a few methods to secure yourself online, you can enjoy browsing the internet securely and anonymously.