Although your ISP or other people on your local network can’t see what you’re doing when you’re connected to a VPN, the VPN provider can. Unfortunately, there’s no sure way to verify that a VPN provider doesn’t log what you do on their service. Research VPNs thoroughly before selecting one.
Do not connect to a public access point if you need to do something private pertaining to your own identity, such as banking or dealing with social security numbers. Even if you see that there’s an open network available, make sure you know it’s the legitimate one for the location. Hackers often set up Wi-Fi networks that look similar to existing ones specifically to steal data. Even if the wireless network is legit, someone shady may be running a tool that can sniff all active traffic. A good quadruple-whammy solution would be to spoof your IP address, connect to public Wi-Fi, connect to a VPN, and then browse through TOR.
HTTPS Everywhere: This browser extension ensures that you’re always visiting the encrypted (https) version of a website. You can get it for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Opera web browsers. It comes pre-installed in more security-focused web browsers like Brave and Tor. [1] X Research source Privacy Badger: This tool, designed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) blocks third-party tracking cookies so advertising services and websites can’t keep tracking you once you leave their pages. [2] X Research source You can get Privacy Badger for Firefox, Edge, and Opera web browsers. Ghostery: This is another tool similar to Privacy Badger that blocks third-party tracking cookies. It also blocks ads and allows you to customize your blocking preferences. Available for Firefox, Chrome, Edge, and Opera. NoScript: A Firefox-only add-on that blocks all JavaScript on websites. Since many websites need JavaScript to work properly, you can manually manage a whitelist to allow JavaScript on sites you trust.
Never download Tor from anywhere other than https://www. torproject. org. If you don’t want your ISP to know that you browse with Tor, you’ll need to use it over a VPN.
Some popular free email providers that make it fast to sign up for new accounts are Gmail and Yahoo Mail. Try Protonmail if you want to send encrypted email messages without providing any personal data.
Website content: If you visit https:///www. wikiHow. com while connected to the internet, your ISP logs that domain name. [4] X Research source In theory, they can tell how often you visit wikiHow, what you downloaded (if anything), and how long you spend on the website. Although they can find this information, they won’t be watching unless they are serviced with a subpoena that requires them to do so. If you frequently visit websites that focus on illegal content, your activity may be flagged by your ISP. [5] X Research source Your MAC address: A Media Access Control (MAC) address is an address assigned specifically to your computer’s Wi-Fi or network card. Your ISP can determine which MAC address on your network was used with an IP address at a specific time—this means that if you’re on your school, work, or home network, the network administrator can identify the sites and services used by your computer. Port numbers: If you make connections to (or receive connections on) certain port numbers, your ISP can often determine what kind of services you’re using, such as browsing the web (usually ports 443 and 80) or sending emails (usually ports 25, 587, 587, or 465). Your VPN service: If you use a VPN on top of your internet connection to hide what you’re doing online, your ISP can see which VPN you’re using and when you connected. They cannot, however, see exactly what you’re doing on the VPN.
To get an idea of what a website can learn about you just by visiting it once, check out https://webkay. robinlinus. com. As soon as you load the page, you’ll see some startling information. Not all cookies are bad. In fact, it’s important to allow some cookies. Cookies are used to store pieces of data on your computer to make your browsing experience easier. For example, cookies make it possible to sign in to accounts that require passwords, add items to shopping carts, and more. However, some cookies, called “tracking cookies” or “third-party cookies” are meant to track your activity on all websites, just not the one you’re visiting. Google plans to ban all third-party tracking cookies from the Chrome web browser by 2022. [7] X Research source
