Avoiding being tracked online is nearly impossible, but here are a few ways to reduce the risk
1. SECURE WEBMAIL WITH EXTENSIONS
If you’re using a popular webmail service, such as Gmail or Yahoo Mail,
and you don’t or can’t make the switch to a more secure service, then
consider installing Mailvelope.
Mailvelope is
a browser extension for Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox that brings
OpenPGP encryption to your webmail service. Similar extensions exist,
such as
SecureGmail,
which encrypts and decrypts emails you send through Gmail. Using this
extension means the unencrypted text should never reach Google servers.
Recipients will need to install the extension in order to decrypt and
read the encrypted email.
2. INCOGNITO
This is perhaps one of the most basic privacy options that just about
anyone can take advantage of. The top four most popular browsers -
Google Chrome,
Internet Explorer,
Mozilla Firefox and Safari - have a private browsing mode, which can be
found in their respective settings menus. With private browsing
activated, your browser will not store cookies or internet history on
your computer. This has very limited uses and is perhaps really only
effective at hiding your browsing history from your significant other,
siblings or parents. Private browsing does not securely hide your
identity or browsing activities beyond your local machine as your IP
address can still be tracked.
3. DON’T USE SOCIAL MEDIA
The amount of personal data that social networking sites like Facebook,
Google Plus and Twitter have harvested from their billions of users is
shocking. Head to facebook.com/settings and click ‘
Download a copy of your Facebook data’
and you might be surprised to see just how much information is on file.
Everything from who you have poked, what events you have or have not
attended and when and where you have logged into your account is logged
and saved. Similar levels of data harvesting occurs on all major social
media sites. This is the price you pay for using a ‘free’ service. The
only sure-fire way to avoid giving up this information is to delete your
accounts entirely. A word of warning, ‘deactivating’ your account is
not the same as deleting it. Deactivating your account is sort of like
putting it into hibernation - all your information is stored and can be
re-activated if you have second thoughts. Always delete rather than
deactivate an account if you wish to completely wipe it.
4. BLOCK AND MANAGE TRACKERS
A large amount of websites track and collect the browsing habits of the
users that visit them. These trackers are invisible and most people
aren’t aware that they’re being tracked.
Ghostery is
a free browser extension - available on all major web browsers - that
will reveal these trackers, also known as web bugs. You can then decide
which web bugs you’re comfortable with tracking you and which ones you’d
like to block. In total, Ghostery keeps track of over 1,900 companies.
Each company has a profile in the Ghostery Knowledge Library, allowing
you to better understand who and why someone is keeping tabs on you and
what action you would like to take.
5. ENCRYPTED EMAIL
Most of the well known and popular email services - Gmail, Hotmail,
Yahoo Mail, Outlook - are not particularly privacy-friendly. For full
Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encrypted emails, consider signing up to a
more secure provider.
Hushmail is
currently very popular, it provides a private email account with no
ads, built-in encryption and unlimited email aliases. A limited free
service is offered, with more features available for a monthly
subscription fee. However, Hushmail is not above the law and in the past
it has been forced to reveal user data to U.S. authorities following a
court order. The company also logs user IP addresses.
MyKolab is
a similar service that has not revealed any user information in the
past, however, they are also obliged to provide access to lawful
interception requests so this still remains a possibility.
6. TEMPORARY EMAIL
Disposable Email Addresses (DEAs) are anonymous and temporary. They
allow users to quickly create new email addresses as-and-when they’re
needed, which can then be disposed of after use. This is particularly
useful for avoiding spam when filling in forms on websites that require
an email address to proceed. Keeping your real email address away from
spammers is crucial to protecting your identity online and DEAs are a
great solution. Popular providers of this service include
Guerrilla Mail and
Mailinator,
although there are hundreds out there to choose from. Most DEAs are not
particularly secure, so it is not advised to use these services to send
sensitive information - rather, use them as a way to avoid giving away
your own information in situations where you are obliged to do so.
7. VPN
Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are one of the most effective ways to
protect your privacy online. A VPN essentially hides your IP address -
your unique online identifier - and runs all your online data via a
secure and encrypted virtual tunnel, which can keep websites from
tracking your online activity or even knowing which country you’re
browsing from. These days, there are many VPNs to choose from.
Hotspot Shield,
TorGuard,
CyberGhost and
HideMyAssare
some of the more popular ones that are currently available. Most of
them require a small monthly subscription fee and they don’t all provide
the same list of features, so it’s worth shopping around for a VPN that
suits you.
8. TOR
Originally developed with the U.S. Navy in mind as a way to protect government communications,
Tor is
a network of “virtual tunnels that allows people and groups to improve
their privacy and security on the Internet.” Tor’s anonymity network
allows access to the ‘deep’ or ‘hidden’ web, where websites can be
created anonymously and individuals can communicate privately with each
other. When using the Tor browser - which can be downloaded for free
from torproject.org - it is very difficult for websites or individuals
to track your online activity and location. However, while Tor is quite
effective at protecting your online anonymity, it can be slow,
complicated and restricting. It’s also worth noting that while the
network can and has been used for good, it has also been used for
illicit purposes, such as selling drugs and distributing images of child
abuse.
9. PROXY SERVER
A proxy server is a computer through which your online activity can be
processed, essentially acting as an intermediary between your computer
and the internet. As such, this can be a great way to maintain your
online anonymity as the proxy basically masks your IP address with its
own. If the proxy is based in a different country than your own, you can
fool websites and trackers into thinking you’re browsing from a
completely different continent. There are many ways to use proxies and
there are various free and paid services on offer.
HideMyAss.com/proxy has a limited free web proxy service that you can start using immediately if you’d like try it out.
10. HTTPS EVERYWHERE
Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is the encrypted version of
HTTP, the technology protocol which determines how web servers and
browsers respond to commands and how messages are sent and received. The
Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF)
HTTPS Everywhere is
a neat little extension - available on Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox
and Opera - that forces websites to use HTTPS, even when they default to
the less secure and unencrypted HTTP. By EFF’s own admission it’s still
feasible for “some attackers to break HTTPS,” but it’s certainly not a
bad idea to install their extension as HTTPS is still far more secure
than HTTP and will certainly help to protect your privacy and
consequently maintain your anonymity. EFF is a nonprofit organisation
that seeks to defend civil liberties in the digital world.
11. DESTROY COOKIES
Cookies are little bits of code that are automatically downloaded from a
website and stored on your system. Cookies allow websites to quickly
and easily remember if you’ve been there before - if you have, the
website may then alter certain variables based on the information that
has been stored in the cookie in order to give you a more personalised
and potentially useful experience. However, some cookies can be very
intrusive, logging information such as how long you’ve been visiting a
particular website, how many clicks you’ve made and what content you
seem to prefer reading. It doesn’t hurt, then, to occasionally wipe your
system of any and all cookies. Admittedly this won’t do a huge amount
to protect your anonymity, but it will make it harder for websites to
learn and understand your viewing habits. You can delete cookies from
within your browser, but to make sure you nuke the lot, you can use an
app like CCleaner, which is free and powerful.
12. USE ALTERNATIVE SEARCH ENGINES
Like most people, you probably use Google to search for things online.
Google is an undeniably accurate, fast and efficient search engine,
however, this is largely helped by its personalised search system. This
is a feature that uses your past search history, rather than just
relying on the terms you’ve typed into the search bar, to present you
with results that are more relevant to your personal tastes. To do this,
Google keeps track of your search habits in a number of ways, including
browser cookies. You can turn off this personalised search by clicking
Search Tools > All Results > Verbatim. But if you really want to
make sure Google isn’t tracking your searches, consider using a
different search engine entirely, such as
DuckDuckGo,
which promises never to track your searches and “emphasizes protecting
searchers’ privacy and avoiding filter bubble of personalized search
results.”
13. USE ALTERNATIVE BROWSERS
While Google Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer are popular, they’re
not as secure as they have the potential to be. If you would like a more
guarded browsing experience that has a more earnest approach to secure
web browsing, consider trying out a privacy-focused browser such as
Dooble,
Comodo Dragon or
SRWare Iron.
However, do bear in mind that the additional security methods are
fairly limited and will do little to protect your overall anonymity on
their own, rather, this should be used in conjunction with other
measures. Additionally, you can probably get a comparably secure service
by disabling third-party cookies and blocking all location data in your
regular browser’s settings and installing various privacy and
anonymity-focused extensions and plugins such as Ghostery or Mailvelope.
14. DITCH DROPBOX
Edward Snowden has called Dropbox - a cloud storage service -
‘hostile to privacy’.
That’s pretty damning. If you’re worried about sharing your files
through this system, there are a number of good alternatives out there
which offer better privacy. Snowden himself recommends
Spideroak,
which describes itself as a zero-knowledge encrypted data backup,
share, sync, access and storage service. You can use a limited version
of this as part of their free trial, which can be found on their
website. A fully featured subscription is available for $12 a month.
However, if you’re just looking to quickly share small or large files
anonymously for free, give OnionShare a go. It doesn’t have as many
features as Spideroak, but it gets the job done.
15. CHANGE YOUR PHONE
Staying anonymous while using a smartphone can be tricky business. Many
apps will want access to all sorts of settings on your device by
default, which you may not be aware of and which you will have to
manually manage with each new app installation and update. Furthermore,
connecting to public networks while on the go is also a great way of
potentially exposing your data to nefarious snoopers. While both Apple’s
iOS 8 and Android’s Lollipop now have good encryption measures by
default, there is another more extreme option in the form of
The Blackphone.
This is an ‘NSA-proof’ smartphone that claims to provide privacy
features for texts, emails, web browsing and phone calls. Reviews so far
have been mostly positive but at around £400, it’s not cheap.
16. USE A PASSWORD MANAGER
If you’ve got a password that can be easily guessed, cracked or stolen,
because you have a bad memory for that sort of thing, then you can say
goodbye to your anonymity. This is especially true if you use the same
password for everything, or across multiple websites and/or services. A
great way to improve your password security is to use a password
manager, like
LastPass.
LastPass saves all of your passwords and only requires you to remember
one master password, making multiple different passwords a lot less of a
headache to manage, which in turn improves your online security and
protects your anonymity.
17. SECURITY FOCUSED OPERATING SYSTEMS
There are security focused email service providers, security focused
smartphones and security focused web browsers, but have you considered
using a security focused operating system?
Whonix is
exactly that - an open source OS that focuses on anonymity, privacy and
security. Based on the Tor network, Whonix is about as anonymous as an
OS can get before it all becomes too inconvenient for normal use. Whonix
runs in two parts, “one solely runs Tor and acts as a gateway… The
other… is on a completely isolated network. Only connections through Tor
are possible.” You can download it for free from whonix.org.
18. ANONYMOUS CURRENCY
Darkcoin is
an open source digital cryptographic currency based on the Bitcoin
software code. It is intended to be a more private version of Bitcoin
(which typically prides itself on its transparency) and it claims to be
the world’s first anonymous cryptocurrency. Finding merchants that
accept Darkcoin can be tough (Darkcoin has its own merchant directory
which you can browse here http://tinyurl.com/qzo398u) but when you do,
your financial transactions are well hidden and, in theory, entirely
anonymous.
19. VIRTUAL MACHINES
Using a virtual machine is a great way to work on sensitive files (or to
open dubious ones) without the fear of online snooping or potentially
infecting your main system. A virtual machine is essentially a second
‘virtual’ computer that you host within your main operating system as an
application. So let’s say you want to download a JPG from an email
attachment, but you’re worried that it’s infected with a keylogger or
some other form of virus that could jeopardize your anonymity. Firstly,
if you suspect this to be the case, you shouldn’t download it at all.
But one method to more safely examine the file if you absolutely must is
to use virtualization software, such as
VirtualBox,
to install a virtual machine onto your system. It’s best to use a
secure OS for this, so something Linux based isn’t a bad idea. You can
then download the file on the virtual machine before turning the
internet on your virtual machine off and opening the JPG. Once you’re
done with the file, you can delete it along with your virtual system,
leaving no traces behind and no potential security issues.
20. AVOID JAVASCRIPT
JavaScript is used all over the web and can provide detailed information
about your system to any website that uses it. This is almost always
used completely harmlessly and is often used to improve your browsing
experience or funnel more personalised and relevant adverts your way.
However, some of this personal or system information can and has been
leaked in the past. Disabling JavaScript completely is not really a
viable solution as a large amount of websites require you to accept
JavaScript in order for them to display correctly. However, you can
install an extension into your browser that will allow you to blacklist
or whitelist JavaScript activity, giving you more control over how and
where your information is being used.
NoScript and
ScriptSafe are both popular choices and very easy to use.
21. DESTROY ALL TECHNOLOGY AND LIVE IN A CAVE
Ultimately, the only way to truly stay anonymous online is to never go
online in the first place. If you’ve already used the internet, delete
any and all accounts you’ve ever created, turn your computer off and
smash it to pieces. You will still leave a digital footprint of some
sort in your wake, but hopefully it’s not particularly significant. If
you’re using this extreme method, you should also smash up your smart
phone, your tablet and your smart TV (they’re listening to us now). Now
that you have purged all connected technology from your life, you may
wish to live in self-imposed exile, perhaps in a cave, so that you are
not tempted to re-enter the online world. Don’t tell anyone about this
and you will successfully have acquired complete anonymity. Probably.