The web can be a pretty daring and dangerous place: big internet companies tracking you, hackers attempting to steal your identity. Here’s a quick guide on tools and methods to use when browsing the Internet.
Concepts
Multiple concepts underline online security and privacy. Things can get a bit confusing at times, so let’s start by defining some key concepts.
Internet Security refers to the ability to protect oneself against malicious online agents. This includes protection against fraud, fishing, intrusion on ones electronic devices, and so forth. Internet security relies on up-to-date software (keep everything updated, always!) and safe online practices (e.g. always be prudent when opening an email from an unknown sender).
Online Privacy is the right to one’s personal privacy over the data she shares and stores on the Internet. In other words, the control, oversight and right to keep private her data. Importantly, this concept does not touch upon identification issues.
Online Anonymity, on the other hand, is the ability of Internet users to conceal their real identity. This concept is usually more controversial than online privacy, as people can roam unaccountable of their sometimes fraudulent online actions. At the same time, it might represent the only channel through which some concerns and resistance to oppression may be voiced.
Browser
Many browsers are available now on the market. The most common ones are all based on Chrome, developed and maintained by Google. Also the code is open-source, much of it is controlled by Google engineers and they embed tons of tools to track your every move. Versions of Chrome striped off of most the Google code take the name of Chromium and can be downloaded here. However, not every bit of Google’s grip is removed, and browsing can be sometimes tedious for the lack of certain features and tools browsers rely on. Check out these notes for more detail.
We recommend to use Firefox, developed by the Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit organization mostly composed of volunteers. They have a strict ethic’s code and are committed to internet privacy rights (see their Manifesto, Data Privacy Principles and Technology with respect and honesty piece). Built from the ground up with these principles in mind, it works much better than Chromium and provides the best privacy.
Here a guide to transfer bookmarks and personal data from another browser to Firefox.
Search Engine
Search engines tell a lot about your browsing behavior and are the best starting point for any marketing company (that is, mostly Google) to start tracking you, inserting her little cookies in your pocket as soon as you make a request.
There are many alternatives, though. Most popular ones are
- DuckDuckGo Arguably the most well-known alternative to Google.
- Startpage
- Ecosia In addition to their strict privacy statement, Ecosia plants trees with the benefit they make from advertising.
- Qwant
- Searx
Extensions
- uBlock origin The world’s leading, open-source add blocker. Even let’s you play Spotify on your browser without adds.
- Privacy Badger Blocks all the trackers it sees more than three times in your browsing. Keeps malicious and data mining companies to make profit on your back, tracking your every step online.
- HTTPS Everywhere Forces websites to open in their secure version (more info on HTTPS here). Might break some websites. If so, disable it for that website (clicking on the extension’s icon), and remove the “s” from “https” in the address bar.
Hosting providers
Big email companies analyze and monetize the data from your emails. You may switch to an email provider that chooses not to partake in those practices. You usually have to pay for these services, but keep in mind that if a service is free, your data is usually how you pay for it.
Privacy-friendly email providers include
- ProtonMail Swiss-based email provider, with end-to-end encryption. A free version is available. Also provides VPN services (see below), cheaper if bundled with email.
- Fastmail
- Posteo
- Tutanota
Other settings
Many promotional emails and newsletters include remote content and images which, once open and accessed by your email client, send a bunch of information back to the sender. This can include time and location, type of computer, number of times you opened the email, and other. This works similarly as “normal” trackers on websites, which is why you usually want an add-on like Privacy Badger to keep those in check.
If you do not wish to be tracked this way, you can disable automatic content loading on most email clients (web-based and desktop). Dig in your settings under email behavior and you should be able to find the switch.
VPN
VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. In practice, a VPN connects you to another network from which you then access the Internet. This makes tracking more difficult, enables you to bypass geo-restrictions and protects your personal identity.
Free VPNs are usually a scam: such a service is not cheap to set up, so a free VPN will most surely track your online behavior and sell it to data brokers.
Some popular VPNs inlcude
Advanced security and privacy
Tor
You can take privacy and security a step further and install Tor on your computer or mobile device. Tor uses several thousands servers that make up an overlay network which makes tracking nearly impossible. Used under the right circumstances, Tor can provide the highest level anonymity to the user compared to the other tools presented here [1].
To use Tor, simply download the program for your operating system and follow the instructions.
I would recommend some great videos from Computerphile on intricacies of onion routing and Tor if you are interested on how all this works.
Debloat Windows 10
Debloat Windows 10 is a small Windows-only tool designed to remove all the unnecessary and per-installed Windows software which might slow down your computer. Use at your own risk.
The Barcelona Vault 