This section will provide a quick overview of protection against online data intrusion and spying. Most websites will only focus on one or two of the things but never both together. As technology advances, so does our knowledge of keeping safe.

 

 

 

 

 

You should know by now what a Virtual Private Network ( VPN ) is. This service hides your private IP address and geo-location. This makes it harder for cyber criminals to find where you are located or hacking your devices.

There are many VPN providers but only a few actually do a good job of protecting your identity and data.

 

 

 In order to get the best protection, this simple checklist is a must before buying a VPN subscription.

Also, many experts will say if these services has audits and are shown publically are also good. This link helps research the many different types of VPN and their data collection - https://www.comparitech.com/vpn/vpn-logging-policies/

Once you have a good VPN, it is onto the next step of securing your data.

 

 

 

 Most websites have advertisement. It gains revenue to the content creator. But it can also be used by malicious hackers and government agencies to infect devices and steal information. Most notable negative impact on advertisements is that it collects your data and sells that data to data brokers, which feeds the data into a database to show similiar content. This has been extended to Big Tech giants listening and watching customers so they can feed them advertisements. This is violation of privacy. Adblocking helps users fight all of these, and helps increase the speed of the websites you visit which clears up extra bandwidth.

Adblockers can be installed on all devices with the except of Apple devices such as the IPhone. Only a jailbroken IPhone allows you to install a third party adblocker. To circumvent this, you may use an encrypted DNS which blocks advertisement domains. This we will discuss in its own section.

The common misconception is you need an ad blocker for your browser, This is not true! You need an adblocker for both browser and for your system! Your device has telemetry and manufacture analytics tracking and data usage. They do not need to collect this data and corporations like Google, Apple and Microsoft are the biggest violators of this.

This is a good start to have total protection from advertisements on your devices and browsers. Easy to use and quick to set up. The next on the list is for browsers only but offers elite protection - https://ublockorigin.com/.

 

The next protection is the easiest and becoming more popular because it goes hand in hand with adblockers.

 

 

 

 Encrypted DNS

 

 This security is usually missed by many security research, but it is the most easiest to do. This should be the first thing to think of when it comes to digital security. Encrypted DNS protects against ISP which more than likely uses their own DNS. Protects against malicious advertisements and even malicious websites. The first thing your device or phone does when it is open is connect to the internet and makes queries. This makes sure the device is connected online with your ISP or mobile carrier. This protocal also helps connecting to VPN, if it blocked by your ISP or even public hotspots. Here is a list of safe and good encrypted DNS:

https://www.quad9.net/ - The number one encrypted DNS!

https://nextdns.io - comes with a subscription service that allows you to create your own DNS and configure what you want to block with extra settings.

https://dnscrypt.info/ - This one comes with an application that connects to the server you want or configure your own.

 

 

 

 

 

Location Faker/GPS Spoofing

 

This protocal is excellent at protection and privacy but very hard to use on most devices. Android phones and tablets have numerous apps on this but for Windows PC and Apple devices, There are none to few options. GPS spoofing has to be mentioned because it is affective. All of our devices utilizes GPS and location services to quickly look up the weather, navigation or directions in maps, Your nearest supply store. This is conveniant but we give up our freedom of privacy due to this services. The best way is to turn off location services. But the data is still transmitted using other sources.

 

For Windows PC, the only protection at this time is to use a VPN.

For Apple Devices, You must be jailbroken/rooted. Install a third party app store ( Cydia, Installer, Zebra ) and find repositories that contains apps and tweaks, such as https://repo.hackyouriphone.org. You may also use PC software such as ITools ( not safe ) - https://www.wootechy.com/change-location/spoof-location-iphone/.

 For Android, There is many apps that work and effective. Best advise is to search on FOSS sites instead of Google store since Google is one of the top violators of Privacy. Some known safe sites are https://fossdroid.com/ and https://f-droid.org/.

 

 

There is other simple easy methods such as use disposable emails or relays, disposable or secondary numbers, delete cookies or use tools to auto delete cookies or block unwanted cookies. I will provide resources here to test your online fingerprint and identity.

 

https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/

https://ssd.eff.org/