Protect Your Online Privacy
Protecting and maintaining your online anonymity is a difficult task.
The internet economy of today, which is primarily reliant on advertising and surveillance, aims to achieve the exact opposite. Governments and third-party companies want to know everything they can about you, whether for national security reasons or to sell you goods. Anyway, it takes work to get them off your back. Being unrecognizable and untraceable has some advantages, but anonymity also costs money and effort.
The conveniences of the modern web were primarily developed around user behavior tracking, profiling, and analysis. Keeping that in mind, there are several measures you may take to secure your online privacy. In this article, we’ll outline those measures for you and give you the resources you’ll need to remain hidden and anonymous.
Online Anonymity and Privacy
Although “anonymity” and “privacy” are often used interchangeably, there is a significant difference between the two. Let’s define what distinguishes anonymity from privacy in the online world.
Being anonymous means that your identity is hidden. As a result, nobody can find out about your identity, background, or privacy. When accessing sensitive information or engaging in financial transactions, anonymity is frequently employed for security reasons.
In contrast, privacy is the act of keeping your information secret. This indicates that no one else can access it; only you can view it. Thus, maintaining your privacy is essential to keeping your personal information safe from prying eyes.
Simply put, privacy is about letting certain people know your identity, and anonymity means that nobody can tell who you are.
How to be online and anonymous
Most popular online browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari, have a “Private” or “Incognito” browsing option. By clicking this, a unique browser window is opened that doesn’t save cookies, keep track of your browsing history, or save any other identifiers.
However, that will not be enough to protect your online anonymity. These privacy settings merely prevent users of the same device or those using your browser from clicking the sync option.
Therefore, you can stop your spouse and children from seeing which websites you visited, but your internet service provider, apps, and websites you visit will still be able to know what you are doing online.
A VPN, or virtual private network, encrypts all internet traffic before routing it through a proxy server in the user’s preferred location. The ultimate consequence is that the device’s IP address is concealed, making it impossible for outside parties—including ISPs—to track data.
Without Tor, no list of privacy requirements would be complete. This global volunteer network of nodes is the definition of anonymity. When you connect to a web server, Tor, which stands for “the onion router,” enables you to encrypt your internet traffic and route it via a diverse network of nodes before reaching its destination. The Tor Browser is the most widely used method of using Tor across a wide range of devices.
The Tor browser is adequate for avoiding targeted ads and hiding your web browsing activity, but individuals who demand absolute anonymity will need a more complex solution. The Tor Project’s official live OS is called Tails. The Tor Network carries all internet traffic, not just web browsing traffic. All instant messages, emails, and files are encrypted, and the OS doesn’t leave any traces on your machine. Tails is a portable OS that is simple to use and designed to be error-free.
Its primary goal is to provide you with security by maintaining your anonymity. Thanks to encrypted connections, you can browse the web anonymously. Tails offer several forms of protection. You cannot be tracked or observed on your visited websites because all traffic is routed through Tor. Nothing you do on the system is saved because Tails doesn’t use a system hard disk. Instead, your work is saved in the system’s main memory and destroyed when it is shut down. It indicates that Tails won’t leave any files on a computer. Therefore, Tails can be used on a public network. It also has several basic cryptography tools.
Anonymous hosting and privacy
Whatever the reason, selecting a hosting that offers a variety of tools connected to anonymity will give you the best chance of keeping your personal information related to web hosting services private. By selecting anonymous hosting, you can host a website anonymously. When you purchase your domain name and select the hosting plan, anonymous hosting does not require a postal address and enables you to register using a pseudonym.
The preferred method of payment to protect personal information privacy is now cryptocurrency. As a result, in most cases, you can make a payment utilizing a secure and anonymous cryptocurrency transaction.
Anonymous hosting is ideal if you need to start an anonymous blog, anonymous website or host any content without revealing who you are.
Many anonymous hosting services have their servers located in other countries. That’s why this anonymous hosting is often also called offshore hosting. Based on offshore jurisdiction, some claims to be DMCA-resistant, meaning that any institution shouldn’t be able to take down your content.
Conclusion:
Although it’s commonly believed that maintaining your online privacy is impossible, employing Tor, a VPS, Tails, and an anonymous hosting service is your best bet if you wish to do so. It is also essential to set some basic privacy rules that must be followed. Protect your privacy by maintaining constant awareness and employing the above-mentioned anonymous services.