If you are worried about your privacy and don’t want to be tracked by your ISPs, Corporate, Government, Agencies, Hackers, then you are in a need of browsing without letting anybody know about your internet browsing habits.
What are the benefits of browsing anonymously?If you are like many people, you definitely don’t appreciate it when others invade your privacy unannounced. So, the primary benefit of browsing anonymously is to protect your privacy. From this benefit stems many other related benefits. They include:
1. When searching for a new job, sometimes you browse through job advertisements using your office computer. The surest way of blocking your current employer from spying on your web searches from the company servers is to browse anonymously.
2. If you have been searching for prescription drug information of late, the last thing you want is a drugs eCommerce store to track down your IP, collect your email without your consent, and start sending you spam about a new medicine. Anonymous browsing will keep them off no matter how they try to access your browser.
3. Many countries have strong and restrictive web policies that you can only duck or bypass using anonymous browsing.
4. It is cool to browse knowing that no one is spying on you. It gives you peace of mind.
5. Maybe there are sites you visit often but would not want a family member to find out. Problem solved.
6. It is common knowledge that we are all under constant surveillance by government snoops, like the FBI or NSA. How better to hide from them than to browse anonymously?
7. If you are a travel enthusiast who loves searching the web for flight prices and travel destinations, travel companies might know how desperate you are to travel and decide to hike prices. Blocking them from seeing your search history is vital for your travel budget.
-
How can you browse the internet anonymously?• Use VPN
Buy a VPN (a virtual private network) and protect your data from hackers, government agencies, and rogue internet service providers. Well, when you enter into a browser using a VPN, you will get a new IP address instead of the default one. So, people will not be able to see your original IP address, thus it will prevent you to be tracked by others. VPN masks your IP address so that no surveillance can identify you through your web traffic.
• Browse in a private window/Incognito
Maybe you aren’t interested in keeping hackers or government surveillance at bay, all you want is to hide critical information from your family members or colleagues who happen to have access to your browsing device. Browsing on a private window means that your search queries aren’t saved in the browser. Even if someone goes looking for them in your history, they won’t find them. Turning on the Incognito mode will prevent the computer to store your browser history and thus it safeguard your identity. When you enable the incognito mode, then the third party apps and plugins are also blocked.
• Try DuckDuckGo
The difference between this search engine and Google or Bing is that it doesn’t sell your data to 3rd parties. In that case, you will not receive any targeted ads or be tracked through your browsing history. In addition, even when you see ads as you browse, they most probably do not carry any tracking cookies and, for what it’s worth, they are based on the immediate search queries that you have typed in recently. They aren’t based on a user profile, like what engines such as Google create for you - which you know nothing about.
• Use anonymous proxies
There are anonymous proxy servers that you can use to block spies from seeing your IP address. Every page you download on your browse first passes through a remote server, so the page administrators on the other end will not track you beyond the remote server.
• Use TOR
As soon as you get online, connect to the Tor network.
• Never use public Wi-Fi
As inviting as it can be, always avoid using Wi-Fi in hotel lobbies, public vehicles, restaurants, airports, you name them. Because you can never be sure who installed the Wi-Fi and whether the establishments are fond of monitoring the traffic behind the scenes, the best thing to do is to stay safe than sorry. What’s more, it is hard to tell if the establishment has installed reliable security and privacy protocols.
• Stop Sharing your Location
Nearly all the browser share your location with the websites you visit in context to provide you better results. For instance, if you are using the Amazon to purchase, then the Amazon can track your Pincode and city automatically using the browser’s location. Moreover, the browser location is also used by the Google advertisers to show your location based advertisements.
• Clear Cookies Always
But be careful while deleting the cookies because of some sites use cookies to track you within the website, so clearing will lead to continues account log out and you have to sign in repeatedly.
• Use a private email service
Are you worried about your communications being intercepted or read? Use anonymous email to encrypt your communications from end-to-end. A privacy-focused email provider like Protonmail won’t ask for personal information when you sign up. You can also choose an anonymous texting service for your mobile device.
-
REMEMBER:
Anonymous browsing and private browsing are NOT the same. Private browsing refers to using a browser’s private mode, such as Google Chrome’s Incognito mode or Firefox’s private windows. While using these modes, your browser won’t store your search history and will clear your cookies and other temporary browsing data once you close the window — but you can still be tracked, and you are not at all anonymous online.
Incognito mode on a normal browser isn’t enough, but a dedicated secure browser offers all kinds of privacy benefits. Block online tracking and mask your digital identity with the built-in anti-fingerprinting technology in Avast Secure Browser. Plus, block ads, prevent phishing attacks, and get lightning-fast browsing.
Avast Secure Browser even comes with a free unlimited VPN on mobile, so you can hide your IP address and encrypt your browsing data with just a single tap. And on Windows, you can conduct extra-sensitive activity in the ultra-secure Bank Mode, which prevents trackers or hackers from seeing any traces of what you’re doing.
Opera browser for desktop also comes with a Free inbuilt VPN.
-
Please let me know of what do you think about this in the comment section. You can also share with all if the information shared here helps you in some manner.
Kindly write your comment on the posts or topics, because when you do that you help me greatly in designing new quality article/post on cybersecurity.This Article Was Written & published by Meena R, Senior Manager - IT, at Luminis Consulting Services Pvt. Ltd, India.
Â
Over the past 16 years, Meena has built a following of IT professionals, particularly in Cybersecurity, Cisco Technologies, and Networking...
She is so obsessed with Cybersecurity domain that she is going out of her way and sharing hugely valuable posts and writings about Cybersecurity on website, and social media platforms.Â
34,000+ professionals are following her on Facebook and mesmerized by the quality of content of her posts on Facebook.Â
If you haven't yet been touched by her enthusiastic work of sharing quality info about Cybersecurity, then you can follow her on Facebook:
Click Here to follow her:Â Cybersecurity PRISMÂ