The concerns over online privacy are increasing every day, not only because people are more aware of the risks but because those who make a profit out of tracking all our moves are more aggressive every day. If you want to remain as anonymous as possible, follow these tips from our international private investigation team.  Staying private means keeping you safe, so listen up.

Start by changing your search engine

One of the biggest companies in the whole world makes its profit out of tracking you. The information about your searches, your preferences, your needs, etc is all stored and used to sell to advertisers. This may seem harmless, but the truth is that it is extremely intrusive and there are many things you would like to keep protected-private, like family. Search engines like Google work great, but Google keeps track of ALL your search history and habits, and even your location at the time of search. This means they not only know what you do online, the know exactly at what time and where you did it. The information stored can also be available publicly, or can be easily extracted by a professional hacker, or shared with a government or other companies and advertisers. Would you like a criminal to have a map of your everyday move?  Is it good for your searches to be recorded?  We don’t think so!

Alternative search engines like DuckduckGo do not track your searches, your GPS location or anything else. So instead of trying to set up privacy settings in Google, and trying to keep up with every privacy policy changes, you might just want to change your search engine completely.

Avoid cookies

It sounds like a diet, but it isn’t. Cookies are little bits of code that are stored in your computer when you visit a website. Most of them are in fact harmless, but some can be very intrusive. Cookies help store information about what you did in a website, how long you were there, what you clicked on, the content you preferred, etc.  They may also log personal information if you entered it in that particular website. Third party cookies, like those of advertisers, can also track things you did after clicking on the ad, so this really helps advertisers have a better scope of what you like/do/prefer. Avoiding cookies will not stop malware, but it will give you some rest from advertisers aggressive and intrusive practices (Are you not tired from having everyone try to sell you something at every single corner?).

Cookies can be disabled in the settings of your web browser, but that might not be so convenient because most sites actually require the acceptance of cookies in order to check any content. Another option is to block third party cookies (which is also a setting in your browser’s privacy settings) and you can delete manually every once in a while or simply ask your browser to delete any cookies every time you close the browser. They will be deleted when you close your browser, so the next time you open the same website it will be like it’s the first time, no history tracking.

Changing your browser

Changing the browser may be hard for many because we all get so used to the one we have always used. But this is just a matter of habit, and you can get accustomed easily to another one. Alternative browsers like Dooble were created with privacy as a priority. They may be a bit slower, but  if security and privacy are things you take seriously then this browser will be of great interest. Dooble has no incognito mode because it is all set up to protect anonymity, all the time.

Restrict social media usage

Nobody likes this tip, because let’s face it, we all like a little peak on social media sometimes. But, with increasing alerts of identity theft and romance scams thriving, social media is turning into a dangerous place to be! Probably the best way to protect yourself would be to avoid using social media at all, but if you still want to enjoy it, try sharing as least as possible. Photos of your children are absolutely out of question, do never ever share. Other private data like where you live, work,  workout, dine, the school that your kids attend, etc should be left out of social media. Most online criminals will study your preferences, interests and places you visit to build a profile of your persona.

C. Wright
© 2017 Wymoo International

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