Easy to Follow Online Privacy Guide

Burglars, stalkers, and other persons with malicious intentions often use social media to scout out their target. Unless you are an influencer or intend to become one, there is little reason to have your personal social media accessible to billions of people around the world.

Log into your Facebook, Instagram, and other social media accounts to make sure that only the people you intend to see your content are the only ones that can.

Personal details such as your where you live and where you work should generally be removed from your social media profiles. Interesting details about you such as the high school you graduated from, your favorite movie, or favorite flavor of ice cream should all be removed. Details like those can be used by malicious persons to answer your password questions.

Embarrassing or blackmailable content such as racy photos or anything that a potential employer may not like should be removed from your social media profiles.

Email services such as Gmail and Yahoo Mail have been criticized in the past for allegedly violating user privacy. If you want an email service that puts privacy first, ProtonMail is the way to go.

Recently WhatsApp has come under fire by privacy activists, as a result millions of people have been looking for a privacy focused alternative. The best messaging app choice for people concerned about privacy and security is Signal. Signal was built with privacy and security in mind and is used by Edward Snowden and other high profile individuals who value privacy.

Websites and services like to track you across the internet using cookies and other technologies. Use the EFF PrivacyBadger extension to automatically discover trackers based on their behavior. Privacy Badger sends the Global Privacy Control signal to opt you out of data sharing and selling, and the Do Not Track signal to tell companies not to track you. If trackers ignore your wishes, Privacy Badger will learn to block them.

By using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service you can encrypt your internet traffic which helps improve your privacy. The VPN service does however have the capability to trace all of your internet traffic back to you, so make sure that the VPN service you are using has a zero-logs policy.

Instead of using Google Chrome, use Firefox or Brave browser. Firefox and Brave both value your privacy. Using the Tor browser is also a good method of reducing your online footprint.

You likely have dozens of apps installed on your smartphone. Review your privacy settings and block access to location services, photos, and other sensitive items as required. If you have apps that you rarely use, simply uninstall them.