Misleading Privacy Tips You Should Be Aware Of
There are many privacy tips and tricks circling the web. While some of them can really help you maintain a low profile when using the internet, there are also quite a few misleading privacy tips that aren’t as useful as they seem and, if you’re not careful, can cause you more harm than good. We don’t want to discourage you from using these tips in the future. The main purpose of this week’s privacy-oriented
Incognito Mode
We all use Incognito Mode when we want to browse the web privately, without storing any data or cookies that can be retrieved later. The way this private browsing mode works is that it keeps your history empty and automatically deletes any cookies when you close the browser. This means that you don’t have to worry about your searches, visited pages, or other details being saved on your device after you close Incognito Mode.
While this certainly is a very convenient browsing feature, there are some things that it can’t do. Most users aren’t aware that Incognito Mode doesn’t really protect them from their ISP, the government or hackers tracking their traffic and activities. Incognito mode also can’t secure your traffic from any vulnerabilities, as your IP address can still be traced back and hackers can get into your device. With all of this said, Incognito Mode can still be a very useful tool in protecting your privacy, it’s also important to know its limits.
Location Tracking
Recent researches show that most online users don’t like using the location tracking feature, as they feel that it invades on their privacy by directly targeting their location. Luckily, this feature can be easily turned on and off every time you wish to do so.
But, a little over a year ago, one of the biggest tech sites published an interesting article on how turning off location tracking might not really help, as some devices and services can still store your location data. Just like Incognito Mode, location tracking is a feature whose inner workings aren’t familiar to an average online user. To put it shortly, it does work, but there’s also a second part to this.
While this may not harm your online privacy significantly, it is undoubtedly one of the most misleading privacy tips circulating the web. Turning off this feature does make it harder to figure out exactly where you’re located, but sites and apps still have other ways of finding out. Big companies like Facebook, Google and other global online businesses can still track your internet connection and determine your location by using the obtained details. Companies that do so claim that they engage in these types of activities purely for targeted advertising.
Fake Social Media Profiles and E-mails
Many online users who wish to keep their private details to themselves use pseudonyms and create entirely fake profiles when using social media and other websites. This is certainly a useful trick to fool you from your friends, family members and all other average online users, but companies and hackers can still get a hold on all of your correct information. Simply by tracking your WiFi network location, IP address or any other piece of digital data, they can keep track all of your online activities without expending too much effort. If any skilled hacker, government agent or even your local ISP wants to monitor who you are and what you’re doing, fake social media accounts and e-mails won’t do you much good.
How To Maximize Your Online Privacy
Using Incognito Mode and applying all of the tips mentioned above within their reasonable limits can help you maintain a solid level of online privacy. In addition to using these tools, you can also optimize your browser to be more privacy-oriented or use browsers like Tor, which is created primarily with this in mind. O course, if you want to maximize your online anonymity and security levels and ensure you’ve done as much as you can to stay invisible online, getting a VPN service is the best option to go with.
- Yaroslav S.CEO at ZoogVPN. Yaroslav is a versatile manager with extensive customer support experience. His historical background and a deep passion for philosophy perfectly complete a real desire to create meaningful content and tech products.
