Do You Stay Anonymous While Surfing the Internet | Antivirus

Without a virtual private network (VPN) and a few other countermeasures, cybercriminals and companies can track your surfing activity.

The topic of data protection has rapidly gained importance since the dawn of the digital age. Awareness of this topic has increased massively - users fear for their online privacy. Nobody can be blamed for wanting to remain anonymous online. At a time when cookies are recording clicks and searches, it is all too understandable to want to get rid of all those unwanted advertisements that know exactly what you want.

Fortunately, it's easy to stay anonymous while surfing the net. With a little foresight and a few downloads, you'll be up and running in no time.

Download a VPN

If you want to stay anonymous online, the VPN is your best friend. VPNs are specially designed to keep your online activities private. To do this, they assign you a unique IP address and help protect your data traffic on the Internet with highly secure encryption.

Secure VPN uses powerful technology to encrypt your personal information without tracking or storing your online activities. It lets you check email, social media, and pay bills on public WiFi without worrying about cybercriminals stealing your information. This VPN without log files also helps prevent companies from tracking your online activities or your location.

When it comes to anonymity on the Internet, there is practically no getting around a VPN. It creates a basis of anonymity and one could argue that that is enough already. But there is more you can do to keep your activities private.

Surf in Incognito Mode or Switch Browsers

If you live in the EU you probably know that every website uses cookies to show you personalized advertisements. You will usually see a pop-up asking if you want the website to track your activity.

Over time, these cookies add up. And unlike their namesake, these have a bitter aftertaste. Before you know it, you will be followed by ads that lure you in with personalized deals based on the length of time you've been on a particular website and the items you've put in your shopping cart.

But if you surf in Incognito mode (Google Chrome) or in private mode (Mozilla Firefox), you can prevent these cookies from clinging to your heels. With each new session, it's like a whole new person opening the browser for the very first time. Browser history, login data, and cookies disappear from the cache as if they never existed.

Another tool for anonymously surfing the net is the Tor Browser - which, however, can also lead you into the dark corners of the Darknet. You should therefore familiarize yourself with how it works in advance.

Stay Anonymous When Using Search Engines

All three major search engines - Google, Yahoo, and Bing - record a wealth of data about their users. If you are logged into your account with the respective provider, they can trace your data back to you across all devices - for example, if you switch from your laptop to your smartphone.

However, there are also browsers for which you do not have to set a different mode first to avoid the tracking trap. DuckDuckGo is known for keeping its users' browsing data under lock and key instead of giving it to data-hungry companies.

DuckDuckGo works just like Google Chrome and any other web browser - with the exception that it doesn't show you any customized search results based on your search history. Instead, identical results and advertisements are shown to each user. The lack of personalization is a by-product of the fact that DuckDuckGo does not record any data to ensure user anonymity while surfing.

Choose Your Email Provider Wisely

The e-mail address is probably the closest thing to the concept of a digital ID. We use them to log into our online bank account, our favorite online shop or those social networks that we just can't get away from.

But if a stranger gains access to this e-mail account, it is practically impossible to take this ID away from them. You can restore the account and change the password. However, if you use the same email address across dozens or hundreds of accounts, it will be a rude awakening. Not to mention, the more often you use your email address as account login, the more information you can get from cybercriminals - or browsers or companies -.

Remember: Nothing is ever really private on the internet.

If you don't want to entrust your email address to every windy e-commerce shop or the website you visit once, you can use disposable addresses. Various websites such as Guerilla Mail or Temp-Mail offer such temporary disposable e-mail addresses.

After a while (usually around 10 minutes) they are deleted forever - just enough time to create an account, verify it, get done what needs to be done, and go never again. This does not change the basic problem, but it is helpful if you have to create an account with a company that you do not trust one hundred percent.

Protect Your Privacy on The Internet

If you want to stay anonymous while surfing the internet, an all-in-one solution with a range of features like a VPN and password manager is highly recommended. Protegent is one such comprehensive solution that offers anti-virus, phishing, and VPN protection, among other things.