Rising concerns for internet privacy have laid down the foundation for people to access the web anonymously. Apparently, internet service providers, search engines, government personnels and hackers continuously keep check of an individuals online shenanigans. At most times, even the incognito mode fails to deliver the anonymity you seek online.Â
With that being said, there are some ways through which you can hide your online activities from the aforementioned parties.
VPN
VPN (Virtual Private Network) is the most leading tool when looking to browse with safety or in this case, anonymously. As soon as you toggle on the VPN, your network becomes private and secure. However, a potent VPN connection can also hide your IP address giving you a better chance to stay as private as possible. IP addresses are a specialised set of numbers that reveal information regarding the connectivity of a user and their location as well. If you want to browse through the internet without revealing any sort of information about yourself, using a VPN is your best bet.
There are many legitimate VPN providers nowadays due to the surge in this industry. For example, NordVPN, ExpressVPN and CyberGhost VPN.
Change Search Engine
Many people use the general mainstream search engine in todays world. For instance, Google, Bing and Yahoo. However, due to their strict guidelines, its been tough to access the internet through them anonymously. Using a different, lesser mainstream search engine will allow you to browse the internet without leaving any trails of your personal information. Hence, DuckDuckGo and StartPage are the most reliable search engines to browse anonymously.
Stay Aware Of Large Platforms
Things have gone worse in terms of online privacy for many individuals. Lets take Facebook for a moment. Facebook continuously shares a user’s private data and information with advertising companies. This is the sole reason as to why you receive the most perfect ads that suit your taste. On top of that, Facebook now tracks a user’s location whilst they are not using the app. Even if you turn off the tracking feature from settings, nothing is going to change and we all know that. Even Google will continue to track down data if you turn off the tracking feature.
There’s no end to this irrelevant tracking of big tech companies but using a VPN might help yet again. It will do the most by bouncing your location or encrypting some valuable information.
BugMeNot
A lot of sites on the internet ask for the user’s to register an account first and then continue browsing. In these scenarios, web pages ask the user’s to set a password and provide some other private information. However, all this could end with BugMeNot.com. It is an internet service provider platform that allows a user to access the website they want regardless of the site being protected.
Whilst using BugMeNot, all you would have to do is enter the URL of the site you want to access and then search it in their system. BugMeNot will provide you with a particular credential that you can use to access the site you want without having to make any sort of account first.
Avoid Open Wifi’s
As you walk in a public place, you will find many open and free wifi’s that you could use. For instance, restaurants, malls and airports offer open wifi’s to the visitors. While they entice us in many ways, they target our personal information more potently. Most attackers tend to sit in the public places to target an individual who is using the free wifi to gain access to their personal information. Although the first thing to do is completely avoid open internet connections. However, even if you can’t, try using a VPN or another safety protocol to encrypt your private information. LTE is another preferred way of going about things in public.