Anonymity and Privacy
Passwords/Privacy
- The first step to keeping yourself safe online is having a strong password for all of your accounts. This is easy to do with a password manager. Make sure every password is different and contains text, numbers, and symbols.
- Use two-factor authentication if whatever you are signing up for offers it. Sending a code to your mobile phone is not very secure, but it is MANY times more secure than just using a password.
- Change your password on your router, do not use the default password.
- Encrypt all your files on your computer.
VPN
- Use a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to hide your home’s IP address on the websites you visit.
- Avoid free VPN’s as these also tend to collect your data
Phone Numbers
- Many sites ask you to put in your phone number. Do not use your real phone number. Use a fake number by creating a google account with false information while on a VPN, and using the phone number provided by Google Voice.
- Don’t use the SMS feature to send messages. Messages on SMS are not encrypted. Instead, use iMessage for those on iPhone, or use the Signal app.
- Switch email providers. Companies like google crawl your emails in order to sell that information to advertisers and make money.
- Use a service like Protonmail, and forward your emails to proton mail. Over time you can change the default email address from the emails you receive and completely delete your gmail account.
- Check out ProtonMail here
Browsing the web
- Ditch Google. Even though all of Google's services are free and convenient, they come at a cost, your privacy.
- Do not use any browser that is chromium-based. Google collects massive amounts of data and this is not a good thing when trying to be anonymous online
- Use Tor Browser bundle to stay anonymous online. It masks your IP address and encrypts traffic.
- Check out Tor Browser bundle here