With the recent anti-privacy bill replacing the Obama-era FCC rules, your ISP has been given absolute powers to track your online footprint and sell the information mined to the highest bidder.
For starters, Internet Service providers can monitor your online activity and sell that information to marketers or other third-party firms in the marketing business. These firms then scrutinize your data, evaluate it and use the findings to gain perceptions about your daily life.
For example, when you surf the web searching for “top ranked phones in 2018,” your ISP would regard top-ranked phones as your interest and direct ads related to that query. Nevertheless, the creepy feeling of having targeted ads follow you on the Internet is just one side of the problem. Once your ISP has this personal information on you, you have no control on how else it will use it apart from selling it to marketers.
Seems like online privacy is no longer a right you have at your disposal today. That means you can’t keep your privacy unbreakable. Or can you? Fact is, you can’t stop your ISP from mining your personal data but you can make the data they mine worthless by changing how you surf the internet. In this article, we discuss different ways how you can hide your browsing data from your ISP.
Use Incognito Browsing
You may ask: How private is private browsing anyway? Well, the quick and short version of the answer is: Not so much! While surfing the internet incognito will prevent tracking sessions from your browsing history, your ISP can still follow your browsing footprint using your IP (Internet Protocol) address. Private browsing may be your best bet when you want to check your email account on a friend’s computer or another device that someone else can access.
Use HTTPS Browser Extension
HTTPs extensions encrypt every website you visit, thereby preventing your browser from leaking any passwords or other private information you share online. Using HTTPS extensions would certainly show your ISP the sites you have visited, but knowing what exactly you are doing there would be a hard nut to crack.
Take for instance you surf the internet to watch your favorite documentary. Your ISP would know the exact site you visited but can’t track the videos you have been watching. They also wouldn’t see the search queries you have keyed in.
Make use of a Quality Virtual Private Network (VPN)
Browsing in a Virtual private network (VPN) is synonymous with internet encryption on steroids. You not only hide your browsing history from your Internet Service Provider but also shield your online activities from hackers, snoopers and online attacks.
A VPN connection basically encrypts the network connection that links your device to the web. It also assigns you an anonymous IP address while online. You will appear to be accessing the internet from a location away from your real one. In addition, a VPN offers a strong encryption, which enables you to browse the internet with absolute peace of mind. A VPN allows you to carry out your online purchases without having to worry about losing your personal data. But whatever you do, avoid using free VPN’s which carry risks of their own. We would highly advise choosing a paid one considering it does not cost anything significant. Have a peek at a review of NordVPN. It might help you out in your decision process.
Install the Tor Browser
Fact is, using the Tor browser alone doesn’t guarantee your anonymity; it asks that you follow safe browsing guidelines. That said, you can use the Tor browser to mask your IP address, location, and other identifying data. It works differently from VPNs and is conspicuously slower than your typical internet connection.
The Bottom Line
The introduction of the broadband privacy bill marks the beginning of the anti-privacy era. In order survive this dispensation; you need to be upbeat in protecting your privacy. Luckily, we have VPNs to keep hackers and snoopers at bay.