STAY ANONYMOUS ONLINE
The 15 things you must do to be INVISIBLE online
Turn on hidden privacy settings Block adverts that track you Beat restrictions with a VPN
Browse the dark web safely Erase forgotten web accounts + Always STAY SAFE online
Personal data is so lucrative it’s been called the new oil, which presumably makes Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg (pictured) the JR Ewing of the digital age. Billions of T pounds are made (and spent) collecting it as we here browse are you online. some people say that’s the price we have to pay to keep the internet free. Without adverts that can target you using this data, websites wouldn’t make money, and would then have to charge you.
That argument, always a shaky one, has been obliterated by the recent Facebook/cambridge Analytica scandal (see page 11). While some data collection may be acceptable, there’s no justification for such a mass abuse of privacy. Arere other companies (Google in particular) looking nervously at events, wondering if they’ll be the next to come under scrutiny?
Regulators are bound to come down hard on Facebook, forcing it and other similarly arrogant tech giants to change their ways. But you don’t have to wait until the authorities act. Reclaiming your privacy is a matter of using tools that keep you anonymous online. In this feature we reveal the 15 most effective methods, all of which work better than sticking a paper bag on your head. We start with urgent chchanges you can make quickly, such as tweaking your browser’s settings so it always launches in prprivate mode, before momoving on to more advancadvanced measures. Some of these hhave side effects that make browsing trickier, as we explain. Staying anonymous requires juggling privacy with convenience. Not all 15 tips will suit the way you browse the web. Some will be overkill, while others may require too drastic a change in behaviour. It’s hard to break habits learned from 20 years spent online. But they are all powerful ways to stop the likes of Mark Zuckerberg making even more billions from your data.