Written by: Apurva Adhikari - 22005, Grade XI
Posted on: 15 June, 2021
It's 2021, and your online privacy is more important than ever before. Your data might be bought and sold multiple times by big companies before you even realize it. It is very important to keep your data secure in today’s world. So, I will be going through how you can protect your data online in this article. As it is impossible to get 100% privacy, the following steps will not ensure to give you full privacy, but it will try to give you the highest amount of privacy possible using the internet.
The first step will be to do what has been a lot in discussion nowadays, it is using a VPN. VPN will give you a bit more privacy than what you are used to but it is not as secure as people advertise it to be. Modern applications don't even need your IP address to track you which makes using VPN useless. Using VPN might be a good choice to access things that are not available in your area but is definitely not a good option for protecting your privacy. But, using a VPN is more secure than using nothing. It will save you from small trackers on the internet. After you get a VPN, the thing you need to be aware of is your browser. Famous browsers like Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge have various trackers built-in which sometimes is even impossible to turn off. To avoid this, using browsers like LibreWolf, Brave, etc would be a great option. Similarly, using open source alternatives of various apps will bring you more privacy to the table. Next is your search engine, you need to use DuckDuckGo instead of Google which is a privacy-focused search engine, unlike Google. You might also need to switch your messaging apps to Telegram or Signal.
If you want to go a step further and be more secure, you need to switch to Team Penguin or using Linux. Linux is an open-source operating system unlike Windows and Mac for desktop. As it is not owned by any big tech companies, it is almost completely free from tracking. Another thing you need to do is use everything open-source which is a recommended way of using Linux. Using free and open-source alternatives of everything like using LibreOffice instead of MS Office, GIMP instead of Photoshop and many more. Using them not only will save a lot of money but also will give you more privacy. That was for your desktop and your laptop. For your smartphone, using an open-source alternative called F-droid instead of Playstore. Using Lineage OS which is an open-source operating system for smartphones instead of using the default operating system of your mobile phone. Another major thing you might need to secure your privacy is not using Apple and big tech companies' products.
If you are really aware of your privacy, you might need to go to the extremes using the following steps. There is almost no popular social media that does not track data. So, there is almost no way to keep your data private using them. So, not using them is the best option. Personally, it was not that hard for me to leave all others except Youtube. For that, you need to use an app named New Pipe which is a Youtube Client which tries its best to secure your data. Completely deleting Google, Facebook and apps like that is a big step to save your online privacy. For other websites, using the TOR browser for using the internet is one of the most secure ways of using the internet. Not only browsers, using operating systems like Tails, Whonix or Quebes as your primary operating system will bring a high amount of security to you and makes it very very hard to track you. For, mailing using mailing services like ProtonMail or Tutanota is also a great step towards privacy. Using everything I have written will make it almost impossible to track you from your devices. But, it will also give you discomfort using hard things instead of using popular and easier ones.
By following these steps, you can protect your online privacy. As previously mentioned, these steps would not promise to give full anonymity. It is understandable that everyone cannot follow every step but I believe everyone should follow these as much as they can to protect their online privacy.
