5 Great Ways to Keep Your Data Private

There’s no doubt about it, data hacking’s big news these days. Some governments even see it as the greatest threat to national security that there is with dire warnings being issued that things are set to get a whole lot more serious in the very near future
From wide scale DDoS attacks to hackers making their way into databases containing hundreds of thousands of individuals’ details, the ones that hit the headlines are certainly high profile examples which are building up into quite a case history of disasters for the organizations involved.

And with more and more forces at work out there, affecting everything from major e-commerce sites and even, allegedly, interfering with the running of national elections we probably should all be worried.

But what, you might say, can you do in the face of such a global threat involving organizations over which you have absolutely zero control? Well, you can start protecting your own personal privacy for a start. So even if there are attacks occurring on the macro level, at least you can be confident that you’ve taken steps to keep yourself safe and secured your privacy as much as you possibly can.

It’s not as if you aren’t spoilt for choice, either, in the ways that you can do this. That’s because there are a wealth of apps and plug ins designed to do just this in a wide variety of ways.

To give you a brief overview of just some of the ways that you can keep your personal data to yourself we’ve picked just a few of them. And they’re not just for your PC, there are tablet and laptop apps too. So when it comes to protecting your privacy online, here’s your starter for five.

AdBlock Plus

If you’ve ever noticed how sites that you’ve clicked on can follow you wherever you go then you’ll have an idea about just how intrusive they can be – as well as letting you know that someone, somewhere is following your movements. Plus online ads can be an annoying addition to the screen that you could well do without.

AdBlock Plus blocks banners pop-ups, rollover ads and more. It also has an extra security feature that blocks domains suspected of hosting malware and knocks out third-party tracking cookies and scripts. Once you get into it there are also many more things that it can do for you to keep you more private and secure online. It’s also very easy to install and use, as well as being equally easy to disable for those sites that won’t let you near them when they sense that you’re using an ad blocker.

Disconnect Private Browsing

There’s a wide range of anti-tracking and anti-cookie apps available – probably because there are so many people wanting to track your every movement online, whether their intentions are legal or otherwise.

One of the very best is Disconnect Private Browsing which will give you all the protection that you need from tracking, malware, and malvertising. It also comes with a number of features offering a more secure Wi-Fi experience than many competitive products. All third-party tracking cookies are stopped in their tracks and you can tailor the filters you need using a very simple tool bar menu. If you’re concerned that your social media activities on Facebook and Twitter are also being tracked to collect your data, then fear no more. Disconnect Private Browsing protects you from this too.

Orbot/Onion Browser

If you want to go even further in keeping your online activities private on your smartphone then here are two apps that will care of it for you. For Android users, Orbot ensures that you can enjoy anonymous browsing and messaging at all times. It does this by using the open source Tor network to encrypt your activity and make it impossible to follow. It’s also very flexible so you can set it to work with some apps but not others where the need for privacy may not be so acute and you need to browse more quickly. Plus, for a quite sophisticated app, it’s very easy to use.

For Apple users, Onion Browser does much the same job by keeping everything encrypted and impossible to track. Graphically, it’s not quite as slick as Orbot but a new, improved version is said to be on the way soon.

Last Pass

It may be a distinctly first world problem but it can be hard to keep track of all those passwords we need for everything from online shopping to using social media. For too many of us, using the same, simple passwords across all our accounts is the answer. But this opens us up to all kinds of risks.

Luckily, there’s LastPass, which can safely store all of our passwords, shopping profiles, confidential personal data, and a great deal more too. It also means that you just need to remember the one password to unlock LastPass password, and if thinking of new passwords is an issue for you then you’ll be sure to also appreciate the password generator that it includes. It works across Windows and MacOS so you’ll be able to keep all of your passwords safe and there’s also a premium plan to give full family coverage.

Duck Duck Go

In recent times there has been a great deal of controversy about the amount of data that search engines like Google hold about us all, and the uses that they may be putting it too. But Duck Duck Go is a search engine that promises to keep your search history private and block advertisers trackers. It does this by encrypting you IP address to hide your identity from the sites you are visiting and preventing them from discovering which search terms you’ve used.

Searches are quick and easy as well as giving comprehensive results so it’s certainly worth trying out.

As we’ve said, there are just a brief selection of all of the aids to online privacy that you can find so it could be worth searching out some more that meet your needs more exactly. But it’s definitely a search worth doing if you really want to protect your privacy online.