Improving Your Internet Privacy

This article is designed to help average people improve their privacy whilst using the internet. I can't stress enough that this is not fool-proof. There are no guarentees. I take no responsibility for how this affects your browsing experience or your life.

The article is split into 3 sections: Easy, Medium, Hard. As the titles imply, each level trades improved Privacy for increased Hassle. The Easy list should have almost no impact on your browsing whatsoever. The Medium list requires a bit of setup and perhaps a small change in the way you interact with the web but the added burden should be managable. The Hard list includes techniques and software that I believe are outside the realm of what 95% of the population will be willing to put up with in the name of Internet Privacy.

Most of the software selections in this article are opensource. Opensource software is desirable because all of the code is available for anyone to download and look at. This means it is far less likely that the software does creepy things behind the scenes because, if it did, someone would have noticed it.

Easy

Firefox

• Switch to Mozilla Firefox for your web browser. Firefox is a well known and mature web browser that benefits from being opensource and not owned by Google. It also has a robust set of Addons that are key to improving your privacy online.
• http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/

Addons

• Installing the following Addons will do things like encourage encrypted network traffic and disable tracking systems

1. AdBlock Edge
   • This is an Ad Blocker which was derived (forked) from AdBlock Plus. AdBlock Plus kinda sold out to the man be defaulting to allowing Google Ads through.
   • https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/adblock-edge/
2. BetterPrivacy
   • BetterPrivacy works to thwart tracking cookies. Tracking cookies are small files stored on your computer by websites you visit.
   • https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/betterprivacy/
3. Disconnect
   • Disconnect is a great addon that stops tracking from a wide variety of sources including Facebook, Google, & Twitter along with Advertising, Analytics and others.
   • https://disconnect.me/
4. HTTPS-Everywhere
   • HTTPS-Everywhere contains a list of sites with secure conections available and tells your browser to use those secure connections when visit the unsecured version of their sites.
   • https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

Medium

More Firefox Addons

1. NoScript
2. RequestPolicy