Privacy is a privilege that most people take for granted. Imagine constantly worrying about somene bothering or keeping an eye on you and challenging your sense of independence and freedom. Just thinking about this happening to us without our consent and knowledge is troubling.

Similarly, you need to be cautious of your online privacy and safety. Websites can gather your data or worse, someone can listen in to your audio or spy on you through your webcam without you knowing.

We are here to tell you that you do not need to panic and there ways that you can employ to browse the web in a safer and more private environment. The essential component of a secure online experience is a reliable internet connection that offers safeguards and features that make for a more secure environment.

The list below entails other factors that you need to pay heed to:

Monitor Your Social Media

Cybercrime and cyber-bullying is a major concern that should not be taken lightly and Social Media has a significant role to play in it. Children often become a target of cybercrime, or cyber-bullying to be more precise. Bullies that were once limited to the school playground, can now harass kids by by stalking their social media profiles or sending inappropriate messages.
In order to stay away from such concerns, it is important that you keep an eye on what your child is up to while browsing social media and encourage them to talk to you when they face such an issue.

Adults can easily become a target of cybercrime as well as their sensitive personal information can be easily compromised. People often grant access to apps and websites access when asked without even looking at what they are giving access to. Before you grant any permissions to any app on social media or any other platform for that matter, give it a read and figure out what permissions you are actually granting.

Use a VPN

VPNs are short for Virtual Private Networks and are capable of creating an online network for that can mask the original IP address of your computer. They do this by encrypting the connection between you and the internet, making it safer than a secured Wi-Fi hotspot.

Whenever you browse the internet without a VPN, your online browsing can be monitored, which exposes your online activities and your online habits. In contrast, if you login with a VPN, every time you go offline, all your online activities of that session are simply forgotten and cannot traced back to you. Another neat feature of this is that you aren’t presented with those irritating pop-up ads all the time since your daily activities are not traceable.

Not Everything Is Worth Clicking

People who are not that familiar with the web and do not use it that often have a habit of clicking anything and everything they come across. Every time they see something appealing, the first thought that enters their mind is to click it and find out. This random clicking can be quite damaging.

One has to understand that not every hyperlink, image, email, or any other link should be clicked. Most of the time an email may seem genuine or tempting but before you go ahead and click it, make sure that it is actually from a trusted source, otherwise, the consequences may be severe.

Do Not Store Passwords in Untrusted Computers

You may find it hard to type your password every time you login but it is there for a reason. It is not even “all well and good” if you save your password in your personal computer, so imagine how risky and dangerous it is to store it any other computer.

According to a source, when you save your password in your browser, you are offering it on a silver platter to whoever that may use the browser after you. Modern-day browsers like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox allow any user to view saved logins in the browser without any authentication. You may argue that those passwords are accessible after entering a master password but that again is a password and must be memorized, not stored.

Be Cautious of Connecting to Public Wi-Fi’s

Nowadays, you have access to a public Wi-Fi hotspot in almost every place imaginable. Whether it is a mall, a café, a library or anywhere else, anybody’s first thought is to connect to the Wi-Fi, but you have to be strong and avoid connecting to those Wi-Fi hotspots.

By connecting to these hotspots, you unintentionally give unrestricted access to all your personal or sensitive data. Even if you do really need to connect to a public Wi-Fi, we suggest connecting to them via assistance from a reliable VPN service.

Keep Your System Up To Date

Whether it is your desktop PC, laptop, smartphone, or any other device that you connect to the internet with, never waste a minute before updating it with the latest software. Developers frequently release update patches for your devices and software that can rectify bugs or any vulnerabilities that your system may have.

You may find it tiring to update your system manually every time an update pops up but a simple solution to that is setting your system to auto-update and you can put aside this worry. And even if you do have to do it manually, a software update merely takes minutes before you can carry on with your work.

Summing It All Up

Browsing the web is a luxury and should be enjoyed with complete freedom, but if you really want to enjoy this luxury without constantly worrying about getting hacked, it is your duty to take all necessary measures that create the perfect secure and private online environment that you genuinely deserve. So, before you go online again, have a quick look at these pointers and decide for yourself whether you are at the risk of invasion and intrusion or not.