Online privacy and internet security are essential and crucial as they determine what kind of personal information can be accessed by prying eyes and other third-party entities. Privacy and security also determine how vulnerable your information is against malicious attacks and breaches.
Why you should protect your online privacy
Prying eyes, cookies, advertising companies, and tracking organizations are all after your sensitive personally identifying data and other related information. Mining and profiling agencies are also busy putting together your fragments of data that you thought can’t be used against you or which you gave away freely. There are also digital footprints that you leave online when you visit any website, do some shopping and even what you search on various search engines.
Putting together this information and with the help of AI, companies and agencies may profile you and track you everywhere on the internet, know your browsing behavior and in turn sell this information to advertising agencies. They will, in turn, bombard you with intrusive retargeting ads with increasing accuracy.
It’s even worse if this information is breached or fall in malicious hands. You might be blackmailed, or be a victim of identity theft and fraud. And this is why you should protect your privacy and online security.
Privacy tools and best practices
To safeguard your privacy and online security, you need the right privacy tools and also adhere to the best online practices which minimize sabotaging your privacy and online security. Below are some basic but ultimate tools and online practices that you can apply and protect your online privacy and internet security from cybercriminals and other prying eyes.
Use a reputable VPN – IPBurger VPN
A VPN protects both your online security and privacy. For security, a VPN uses strong encryption standards to encrypt your online traffic and tunnel it securely via a VPN server. The encryptions render your data unreadable as it scrambles it into some gibberish form. The secure tunnel is also hard to hack into but in case prying eyes manage to intercept your data; they won’t be able to read it let alone decrypt it.
This makes a VPN a suitable tool to use when surfing the internet. Due to the secure connection tunnel, you can use a VPN to protect your online traffic on public Wi-Fi hotspots, and you won’t worry about malicious actors getting their hands on your data.
Besides the encryptions, the VPN server also hides your actual IP address by assigning you a virtual IP address. This also masks your actual location with a virtual location. This combo makes you anonymous when you surf the web.
A VPN also provides other benefits such as bypassing censorships and geo-restrictions, gaining access to restricted content, avoid ISP throttling and also a VPN can help you unblock websites.
Browse privately with a secure browser
After setting your VPN connection, the next thing is to ensure you browse privately. This starts with getting a secure browser that can protect you against online privacy injustices such as online tracking. Besides this feature, your choice of browser should be able to delete cookies after your browsing session or even better block them. It should have other various privacy features such as enforcing HTTPS everywhere for encryption, block pop-ups and intrusive ads, block scripts, and other malware.
A secure and privacy-focused browser won’t help you much if you don’t adhere to the best online privacy practices. Use search engines that are privacy-focused, avoid clicking on ads, and most importantly don’t be a victim of phishing scams. Lastly, visit legitimate sites only as this practice reduces your chances of landing on a spoofed site and getting phished.
Control what you share online
You might have the best security and privacy tools in place but still, sabotage your online privacy by what you share online. AI-powered data mining tools can be aggressive in collecting what you share, and after an analysis, these tools can create your profile and use the data to track you.
Also, when filling forms, it’s necessary to leave out some personally identifying information unless it’s a must that you provide them, always have disposable emails and accounts that you can use for various online activities.
Be careful of what you share on social media platforms and always practice the best online privacy behavior when posting in social media – don’t include location, check what information your photos might be revealing and scrutinize people who tag you and check whether they have the best online privacy practices. They can also sabotage your privacy.
Use a reputable antivirus and antimalware
Your privacy can easily be breached if your security has been breached, an antivirus can help you block and remove all known malware, and even phishing attacks when surfing the internet.
