Here are five tips for protecting your online identity from Velseoity
1. Always use a VPN
A VPN, or Virtual Private Network, will allow you to connect to one central server and have all of your traffic encrypted as it goes through that server. This means that people who are listening in will not be able to view the traffic you are sending or receiving. Everything is protected, from the mundane communications to the ones that you do want to be a bit more discrete about. We use these for outreach for guest posts.
2. Ditch Dropbox
Dropbox is an online file storage system which has been called ‘hostile to privacy’. If you need somewhere to share files between friends, then Edward Snowdon recommends Spideroak instead.
3. Disable Javascript
JavaScript is important for making websites look good and for adding interactive features. It is ubiquitous. Facebook, Google, even your online banking sites will have some Javascript in there. The problem is that it is not particularly secure. Javascript can be used to hijack vulnerabilities in your computer’s browser, sending you to malicious sites or installing malware onto your machine. The most secure option is to completely disable JavaScript but that would render many corners of the web unusable. A better option is to use NoScript to disable JavaScript and Flash on unknown websites, then manually whitelist the websites where you know that the JavaScript is safe and necessary. As a bonus, you should get fewer annoying ads too.
4. Browse in Incognito Mode
While Incognito mode will not encrypt your communications or guarantee complete anonymity to the websites you visit, it does have some benefits. You will be harder to track from session to session for different advertisers, and you will not save any information on your PC, so other users will not be able to easily figure out what you have been doing and what sites you have been visiting. Incognito mode is useful for things like shopping for a birthday present, where you will not want to have cookies set, so that ads for the present don’t show up on the computer when other members of the family are using it.
5. Try CSpace for Chat
Instead of using Facebook chat or Skype for your day to day communications, consider using CSpace instead. This is an encrypted service that is useful for file transfers and chat, without having to worry about getting your information intercepted. While it can be hard work to get people to change over to a new service, it is well worth trying, the more people that transfer over to privacy-centric services the better in the long run.
