How to stay anonymous online?
Now a days, most people spend huge amount of time surfing web online. When you browse online your browser saves data in your browser history. Governments uses this data to watch your online activities.
Big companies store cookies in your computer. Cookies help them to track your online activities.Due to this reason people are seeking ways to stay anonymous online. There are various ways to avoid online tracking.
Private Browsing
Popular browsers give you control to restrict cookies to reveal specific information. Certainly this increases your online privacy.
Private browsing is a built in tool to avoid tracking.This features increases you online privacy.
However, this feature may fail to purge all traces of online activity.
Google chrome and similar browsers uses same feature incognito mode.
There is no bulletproof solution for online privacy. But you can minimize the risk.
Below is the list of tools that helps in tracking your data.
- Cookies
- Flash Cookies
- Finger Printing
- Internet Service Provider (ISP)
Cookies
Cookies are pieces of information. Web server sends this information when user visits a website.
When you visit websites sites store data about your visit on your hard drive. We can call this information cookies.
Cookies store variety of information. For instance login or registration data. In addition to this online shopping cart information e.t.c.
Flash Cookies
Flash cookies also refers as a local shared object (LSO). It is a new way of tracking activities. These store more information in contrast to normal cookies.
Video websites uses flash cookies.When user request content that require flash player. As a result flash applications save information in text file. In contrast to normal cookies flash cookies are difficult to remove.
Fingerprinting
It is new way of tracking online activities. It is replacing cookies. Fingerprinting is difficult to block.
Fingerprinting is information about hardware & software setting. For example clock setting. Most importantly details about your devices.
5 Free Add-ons To Stay Anonymous online
Privacy Badger:
Privacy Badger is Mozilla Firefox add-on. It automatically block invisible trackers. Instead of keeping lists Privacy Badger learns.
It sends Do Not Track request. If trackers ignore, Privacy Badger will learn to block them. Like wise it block similar tracking on different websites.
Besides this it blocks outgoing link click tracking on Facebook Google and Twitter.
Ghostery Privacy Ad Blocker:
Ghostery is good alternative to privacy Badger. It is a comprehensive privacy protection add-on. It uses AI anti-tracking technologies. In addition ad blocking works alongside.
In short, it increases page load speed. Due to this reason it improves overall page performance.
NoScript Security Suite
It is lightweight add-on. It is available on Firefox chrome and opera.
NoScript block s Java scripts. In short gives you the best available protection on the web.
ScriptSafe
ScriptSafe is alternative to noscript. It gives you more control over the web. ScriptSafe gives protection against fingerprinting. It protect against WebRTC leaks. Further more, block unwanted cookies.
Self-Destructing Cookies
As name suggest, it deletes cookies automatically.This add-on offer two options to destroy cookies.
- Tab Mode
- Delete cookies when you close current tab.
- Session Mode
- Delete cookies when you close your browser.