How to leave as few traces as possible and improve security on the internet?

[bitheerani319]

Who's for cookies? Probably everyone! I'm the first to love cookies, especially if they're chocolate, but I don't like those virtual cookies that collect our data when we browse the internet and then follow us wherever we go.

The fact is that the internet knows a lot about us, even if you don't have a profile on any social network. Just visit a website and you can bet that the next time you connect to the net, advertisers will offer you a personalized ad related to what you previously searched for.

How do they know? Cookies! Websites place invisible “cookies” on our computers and then track where we move around the Internet and what we do there. Google and Facebook collect our data, which they then sell bangladesh whatsapp list advertisers. In short, if you think someone is following you while you are online, this time you are not paranoid, but right. No one is anonymous on the Internet anymore, not even when surfing in incognito mode.

It's easy to feel insecure, angry, and powerless when it comes to online security, especially when you know how many hacks and cyberattacks happen every minute. Sure, you can always delete your social media accounts, change your passwords frequently, or use an ad blocker and hope for the best, but do you really want to live like that (aside from ad-blockers, they're useful)?

These few methods can help you leave as few traces as possible on the internet, improve your security, and still enjoy all the benefits and beauties that this crazy cyberspace has to offer.

Get rid of Google
Google knows everything about you. Sounds like a line from the X-Files? Maybe, but it's true. Google really does know everything about its users and probably knows more about you than you know about yourself. For starters, if you don't know where you were surfing 4 years ago today and how much time you spent on a particular website, rest assured that Google has that information in its archives.

Things aren't any better if you use other Google services like Gmail, Google Maps, or Google Docs in addition to Google Search. The solution? Use an alternative search engine like DuckDuckGo .

It's not as popular or useful as Google, but it doesn't track your movements, advertisers can't reach you, and it doesn't track where you surf or the pages you visit. If you're concerned about your privacy, what more do you need?

What about Gmail? Do you want super secure and anonymous email with a bunch of settings that work in your favor? Try ProtonMail, which costs $4 a month but is guaranteed to be secure.

Get rid of pointless web tracking
If you ask me, I'll tell you that it's better to see ads that interest you than those that don't. It's hard to avoid ads, especially if you don't want to get rid of Google and its services, so it's better to get offers for travel than for nail fungus if travel is what interests you and the latter doesn't bother you.

However, there are people (trust me, I've met them) who are absolutely terrified of being tracked online and seeing ads related to something they searched for yesterday. What can they do?

I can use a free plug-in called Ghostery that works on most browsers and blocks trackers and categorizes them. Sometimes trackers are useful, sometimes they just serve to track you better, record your behavior, and serve you even more relevant ads.

Confuse Google
Still scared of ads that say a lot about your interests and where you go online? Why not confuse Google? It's a really cool method, but don't try it if you hate irrelevant ads even more than relevant ones.

What should you do? Surf completely irrelevant sites once a day (for a very short time) just to fool Google into setting the wrong cookies that have nothing to do with your interests.

If you want to register on a site, you can specify the wrong gender and spice up the whole story even more. What will happen? You will be followed around the internet by ads that have nothing to do with you and your interests. If that's better than targeted ads, then this is a method worth trying.