Summary: This post summarizes the steps you can take to be better protected from threats, minimize online tracking, and improve privacy.

When you browse the web, you leave a trail of information behind you. This includes your IP address, browser type, operating system, and more.

This data can be remarkably detailed, and so is extremely valuable to corporations, governments, and intellectual property thieves. Irresponsible use of users data and leaking users information not something new as a result would shatter the anonymity of users

There are two primary methods of tracking; stateful (cookie-based), and stateless (fingerprint-based). Cookies are small pieces of information stored in your browser with a unique ID that is used to identify you. Browser fingerprinting is a highly accurate way to identify and track users wherever they go online. The information collected is quite comprehensive, and often contains browser details, OS, screen resolution, supported fonts, plugins, time zone, language and font preferences, and even hardware structures.

This post summarizes the steps you can take to be better protected from threats, minimize online tracking, and improve privacy.

Ensure Website is Legitimate

It may sound obvious, but when logging in to an online account you should double-check that the URL is correct. When visiting new websites, look for common signs that they may be unsafe: browser warnings, redirects, on-site spam and pop-ups. You can also check a website using a tool such as Virus Total URL Scanner, IsLegitSite, Google Safe Browsing Status. If you want to be sure, a simple WhoIs Lookup will give you their phone number to call for further confirmation.

Use a Privacy-friendly Browser

Firefox and Brave are secure, private browsers by default. Both are fast, open source, user-friendly and available on all major operating systems, so consider using them as your first choice.

Use a Private Search Engine

sing a privacy preservation, and the non-tracking search engine ensures that your search terms are not logged consider searching with private, even giving you a different result.

Use Incognito / private window

This will not keep the browser history, and it prevents cookies and some data from being saved

Recognize the Browser Fingerprint

Browser Fingerprinting is an incredibly accurate method of tracking, where a website identifies you based on your device information, including browser and OS versions, headers, time zone, installed fonts, plugins and applications, and sometimes device hardware among other data points. You can view your fingerprint at amiunique.org- The aim is to be as un-unique as possible

Block Ads and Trackers

Recommended Using an ad-blocker can help improve your privacy by blocking the trackers that ads implement. uBlock Origin is a very efficient and open-source browser add-on, available for Chromium-based browsers, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Safari, and Opera. Another option is by using some DNS servers, or VPN servers can deliver such feature but almost be sure that VPN provider ultimately is your privacy friend otherwise they can track you browsing just by using their DNS SERVER

Blocking trackers will help to stop websites, advertisers, analytics and more from tracking you in the background.

Disable WebRTC

WebRTC allows high-quality audio/video communication and peer-to-peer file-sharing straight from the browser. However, it can cause a privacy leak, especially if you are not using or VPN. In FireFox WebRTC can be disabled, by searching for, and disabling media.peerconnection.enabled in about:config. For other browsers, the WebRTC-Leak-Prevent extension can be installed.