Hi Everyone,
 

Over the last several months, my understanding of digital technology has advanced out of necessity, as I am sure yours has as well. Besides using Zoom and providing tech support to my mom for her online teaching, I have also experimented more with digital media. For my continuing studies Illustration courses last year, I used image editing software to create or enhance my illustrations. The example below, a gouache painting with digital edits, was based on an article about how music affects our emotions.

Besides gaining more experience with video calling and graphic design apps, I have also learned a lot about protecting one's online privacy. With so many of us staying home and now using the internet more than usual to connect, more of our daily activities are being tracked by advertisers.

Many websites have a cookie banner at the bottom, giving you the option to disable any cookies (text files and settings stored by your web browser) that are not required. If there is no way to customize them, leave the banner alone. Don't just click "Accept"; third-party cookies are the ones you will want to block from tracking you across websites. The most invasive companies you have to watch out for are Google and Facebook.

Below are some more steps I would urge you to take, to prevent companies from profiting off your data and activity, using them to target you with ads. I have researched and tried out all of these options, so I hope some of them will work for you too:

1. Use a private search engine

Google, Yahoo!, and Bing collect your data to provide "personalized" experiences. To prevent that, consider using an alternative search engine that does not record your search history and blocks advertising trackers. US-based private search engine DuckDuckGo is very popular, but it anonymously saves searches. I would recommend the European metasearch engines below. (Click the logos to try them out, or the text links to learn more about them.)

2. Use a private & secure browser

Your browser contains large amounts of personal info, from browsing history to login credentials, so setting it up to be private and secure is critical. With a few settings changed and add-ons (extensions) enabled, Mozilla Firefox is ideal.

Once you have it, you may want to disable telemetry: go to Options/Preferences > Privacy & Security > Firefox Data Collection and Use. Then uncheck all the boxes in that section. Although the default search engine is Google, you can set Qwant or Swisscows as the default by adding its Firefox extension from these links here.

Safari browser is the next best major one for privacy since it blocks third-party tracking by default. Although Apple is better with privacy than other large companies, it has been known to store browsing history even after it is deleted.

The full-featured Firefox is also available for mobile. Or, for a minimalist browsing experience on your mobile phone, use Firefox Focus instead. Download it for Android or iOS to help websites load faster and more securely without any ads.

3. Use a good ad blocker

Advertisements are data collection tools, even if you don't click on them, and can also be a security threat if they contain malware. The best solution to this is an extension called uBlock Origin. Click the logo to see all available platforms.

4. Log out of accounts

It's a good idea to stay logged out of your accounts (Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) when surfing the web, so that your activity is not linked to your profile.

Another option is to use one browser for signed in activity and another for general browsing. You can even sign into different accounts on the same website and keep them separate with the Facebook Container or Multi-Account Containers extension. Here is how I have set up my container tabs:

I was appalled to discover how much of my family's web activity, YouTube views and even location history had been unknowingly recorded on our Google accounts over the years. Google’s privacy page explains that it tracks things you create, such as emails, contacts you add, calendar events and photos you upload. From there you can go to your Google account to manage your data and personalization.

Learning all of these methods for reclaiming my online privacy has been quite an eye-opening journey. Since privacy is a right, we shouldn't be expected to sacrifice it in order to use the internet. Let me know if you have any questions, or simply Qwant them!

Safe browsing,

George