If someone offered you to become fully anonymous online by doing just one single thing, you’d probably be highly skeptical – and for a good reason. In today’s day and age, this dream of complete namelessness when surfing the web sounds almost unattainable. And even though anyone in their right mind will tell you that it’s pretty hefty and difficult to achieve this, there are still some things you can do on your part to stay as anonymous as possible.
No matter how hard it may be to actually pull this off, completely surrendering and giving up trying to protect your online identity shouldn’t be an option as well. That’s why we’re going to give you some tips on how to accomplish this online anonymity.
Move to a Country That Values Your Privacy
This may sound too radical, but if you’re really determined and want to become fully anonymous online, you have to start with some thoroughgoing or revolutionary steps.
There’s a General Data Protection Regulation that the European Union is advocating, for instance. This means that any EU citizen is more protected by default than someone who lives in a country or a continent where this GDPR-like law is not even considered. We surely hope that others will follow this example and enable people to protect their individual privacy, instead of breaching it.
Anonymizing Operating System
But for many of us moving onto a different location is simply not an option. That’s why we need to do different things, and it all starts with getting an anonymizing operating system.
The basic idea behind the concept is to have a resettable virtual machine that runs on secure portable media. You should also make sure that there’s a hardware or software-based encryption that the portable media can use.
You should either use a Live OS or see that your OS doesn’t store any information about you. Probably the best way to stay protected is by using a Live OS that’s stored in a Virtual Machine. That way you can opt for letting the Virtual Machine assign random Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol and Address Resolution Protocol each time you start your computer.
Always Use a Reliable VPN Service
If the aforementioned things sound too complicated or technical for you, there’s actually a simpler way to hide your personal information online and keep your data protected. This method revolves around making your identity difficult to track.
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is specifically designed to create a secure connection to a different online network. Tracking someone’s activities can be an arduous and challenging task if they’re using a reliable VPN service. That’s why we strongly recommend you to browse safely with some of these free VPNs and keep your identity hidden, among many other great features.
Anonymizing Browser
We’ve already touched upon the importance of using anonymized OS if you intend to stay hidden online, and now it’s time to mention that it’s also paramount that you use an anonymizing browser, as well.
Probably the most known is the Tor browser, even though this isn’t just a browser, strictly speaking. The Tor browser is really a set of tools, browsers, APIs, and networks, so it resembles a system more than anything else. There are ways to go around Tor’s anonymity, but this doesn’t mean that you should completely abandon it. When combined with some of the previous suggestions, it’s still one of the best things you can do in regards to staying incognito.
Stay Away From Browser Plug-Ins
Not too many people know that browser plug-ins can be used for collecting your personal information. When you use some of these plug-ins, you’re virtually handing out both your identity and location.
If this is not something you’re too fond of, we recommend you to stay away from them as much as possible. Paradoxically, there are some plug-ins that are actually designed to enhance online privacy and prevent other plug-ins from collecting your personal data. We can’t get too involved here since it’s basically your decision who you can trust.
Opt For Search Engine That Doesn’t Track You
Some of the most popular search engines will keep track of your searches, and if they intend to do so, there’s not much you can do about it other than switching to a different search engine.
For instance, DuckDuckGo can be a good choice since it offers many useful options and features like region-specific searching, keyboard shortcuts, Instant Answers, and so on. If you truly intend to stay unidentified, you should give it a go and see if you like it.
Regularly Clean Out Cookies and Browsing History
This may sound like something that’s not even worth mentioning, but it’s also something that you shouldn’t omit by any means. Sometimes even the most simple solutions like this one can mean a great deal in terms of staying anonymous online.
Cookies were designed to make our browsing far easier and comfortable, but when the cons outweigh the pros, there shouldn’t be a doubt in anyone’s mind whether you should use them or not.
In Conclusion
Surfing the web with complete anonymity may sound like science fiction these days, but this still doesn’t mean that we should abandon all hope and give up completely on the idea.
There are still some things you can do to stay as anonymous as possible, and this simple guide is specifically designed to help you with that.
