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Protecting Your Online Privacy from a Practical Viewpoint

Protecting Your Online PrivacyMost people will just ignore concerns about online privacy until their privacy is personally compromised. When you try to discuss online privacy with the average person, their eyes sometimes glaze over and they just do not get it or want to talk about. There are a few things that every consumer can consider when protecting your online privacy from a practical viewpoint. They are easy and straight forward and should be part of your everyday life. We put together a list that everyone can follow.

Protecting Your Online Privacy from a Practical Viewpoint

Review the Privacy Settings for your Devices – whether it is your cell phone, tablet or computer there is lots of personal information stored on these devices. Everyone should review the privacy settings on all of these devices to avoid personal information being shared across the web. Also, review apps like Facebook etc. and ensure that the only people who can see your personal information and posts are those that you are friends with.

Understand What Information is Already out There – one of the first steps is to understand what is already out there. Check using Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Yahoo, Bing, and so on. Delete whatever you can. Anything else will just have to stay there which is not really a comforting thing.

Always use Secure Passwords – it is difficult enough to remember the various passwords that we are forced to come up with even if they are straightforward. But a common password will just not cut it these days. You have to use secure passwords that involve, letters in upper and lower cases, numbers, and special characters. Use a password manager or write them down and keep them in a safe place. The password on your password manager app should be very secure and difficult to hack. This is the most important one to make the most difficult.

Delete apps, extensions, and services that are not Longer Used – if you do not use them, get rid of them. Remove all of the clutter. This clutter could contain personal information such as passwords and user ids that if found in the wrong hands could result in all of your personal information become available to the wrong people.

Avoid Google

Google tracks everything you do online. If you use Chrome which is the browser produced by Google, switch to another browser. You might use another lesser-known browser to lower your profile even further.  If you are not convinced, perform a quick search using Google for something in one of your emails or a site that you regularly visit. You may be surprised at what you find.

Use Encryption for Your Messages – Whatsapp is probably the only messenger that uses encryption at this time. Everything else is open and every message travels through a server somewhere. Popular iMessage on Apple products sends every message to their servers before sending it to the device you are targeting. Even voice dictation is sent to a server in the cloud, converted to text, and sent back to you for use in whatever app you are using.

These are just a few suggestions for protecting your online privacy.

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