Anonymous Web Surfing – How to browse web anonymously & safely? To surf the internet safely and anonymously is not an easy task to do. There are so many small factors that will slip into the trap and your safety is compromised. The safety starts from self education about safety and methods you can do to achieve this including but not limited to using a VPN, using a browser that doesn’t track your locations, having online security and anti-virus software, etc. Keep reading to know in full details and for some special offers on VPNs and anti-virus softwares.
Anonymous Web Surfing – What defines anonymous in internet?
Defining “Anonymous web surfing” is very easy but executing to become anonymous is very difficult. There are many components that gives away your information in the internet and hence there are many sections to take care of. Let’s see all the factors that makes your connection insecure. I will also give a list of ways you can do to surf or browse internet safely and anonymously.
GPS and IP address
First of all is the location of your internet connection. The most two common methods used by the hackers or websites or anyone who wants to know your location are the GPS and your IP address. So, almost every phone has the GPS inbuilt in it. Sometimes websites needs to know your location in order to provide you a better service like a food delivery app, direction apps, etc. But there are websites and apps that asks your location for nothing. The easy solution to the GPS problem is turning off your location service for all apps or for the specific apps. This can be done by going to your setting and then location services for iOS devices or to google location services in android devices. Some laptops with GPS in it have the same option.
IP address is the physical address of internet. By knowing your IP address, anyone can know the ISP, your approximate location, etc. If you are browsing dangerous sites, then you should never expose your IP address to that site. This is one of the most important task to do in order to browse the internet anonymously. There are many ways to hide your IP. The first and easiest way is to use a VPN or proxy address.
Hide your IP using proxy or VPN
By using a VPN or proxy, your internet connection is relayed from another device or IP address. Let us consider that you are browsing google.com, usually, your browser using your IP address send the data directly to the website and if you are the owner of Google, they can know from which address you are browsing. If you are using a VPN or proxy, the information sent to another server first and then the server with a different IP address send the information to google. This way your exact location can not be tracked. Many users like you may be using the same IP google is getting so they can’t exactly identify which one is who.
Free VPN vs Paid VPN
Before going with some exciting VPN offers, let me tell you some cautions you should look for when using a proxy or VPN. Most of you are excited about free VPNs and we tend to love and use free stuffs. But, you should never use free VPNs and proxy services. First of all, nobody in the world provides a service for free, they always make money in some other way. There are many reports that free VPNs sells their customer data to buyers. Your data may contain your location information, browsing history, your behaviour in the internet, etc. What is the use of VPN when they are selling your information.
The speed in free VPN are terrible. As the service is terrible, they throttle the internet speed so that they can provide the service to many users as much as possible. Some protocols like torrents, movie streaming, etc. are restricted in free VPNs. However, the VPN or proxies are mostly used for these purposes. All these problems are not in the premium VPNs. The bandwidth and connection protocols are unrestricted.
Even when you are using premium VPNs, check if that VPN has zero log policy. Zero log policy means that the VPN service provider keeps no record of what were you doing during the time you were connected to their service. VPNs based on US and some European countries are required to keep it by law. But never ever use such services. Below are my best VPNs which offers best services and with low prices. All the VPNs listed below have zero log policies. You must keep at least two VPN connections because most of VPNs have server downtime because of many reasons so that you can use the other VPN when the other is down.
Pure VPN 77% OFF
- 5 simultaneous connections.
- 31 days money-back guarantee.
- 2000+ servers at 140+ countries.
- Anti-virus, ad-blocker at the server level.
- Fully encrypted data transfer.
- Unlimited dedicated torrent (P2P) servers.
- Application for all platforms.
- Cheap (77% OFF).
- Kodi support.
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- 6 Simultaneous connections.
- Unlimited torrent usage (optimised server).
- Military-grade encryption.
- 4900+ servers from 62 countries.
- Streaming services support (Neflix, BBC, ABC, Hotstar, Sonyliv).
- Double reroute your connection (double VPN).
- Automatic kill switch (disconnects all connection in case VPN connection is lost).
- Tor connection on top of VPN.
- Applications for all devices.
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IP Vanish VPN
- 40,000+ shared IPs, 1,000+ VPN servers in 60+ countries
- 256-bit AES encryption.
- Unlimited anonymous torrenting.
- IKEv2, OpenVPN, and L2TP/IPsec VPN protocols.
- 10 simultaneous connections.
- 7-day money-back guarantee.
Click here to buy IP Vanish VPN now.
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Private VPN
- Superfast speed.
- Easy software for all applications.
- 80+ servers in 56 countries.
- Encrypted data transmission.
- 6 simultaneous connections.
- VPN protocol includes OpenVPN, PPTP, L2TP, IKEv2 and IPSec.
- 30-day money-back guarantee.
- Streaming optimised servers.
- Plenty of protocols to connect to.
- Apps for all platforms.
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Golden Frog Vypr VPN
- Owns all the hardware and software.
- Can’t be blocked to its connections by government.
- 200,000+ IP addresses.
- 70 VyprVPN server.
- Apps for all platforms.
- Military grade encryption.
Some other top VPNs are: CyberGhost VPN, Express VPN, Ivacy VPN, Windscribe, Hotspot Shield, etc. All the VPNs offers uncensored access to any website without bypassing all the blocking implemented by authorities and governments. I have written an article about torrent safety if a VPN is used. Click the link below to read the article in more details.
Anonymous Web Surfing – Use a safe browser
Most web browsers allows certain things not that they want to expose you but because of better functionality and improve user experience. The most secure browser available is the Tor Browser. It prevents from any scripts executing, storing cookies, play flash players, etc. Anything that needs to be executed will be notified to you and you have the chance to either allow or deny it. The tor browser has unique encryption of your connection and it is considered one of the best available. It is also free. However, the speeds are sometimes slow and can not be used for streaming.
Anonymous Web Surfing – stop providing informations
Another way to anonymous web surfing is that you stop providing your information to websites. If a website is asking to sign up to their newsletter, do not just give your email, name. First decide carefully or create a totally different email only to receive such emails. But never open, log in to this account unless you are connected to a VPN or tor. From the information you provided, one can use such information in any way which you have control of. If you are using a membership site like Facebook, twitter, Google, etc. then you have no choice but provide the information and use it but carefully.
Anonymous Web Surfing- clean cookies & scripts
Cookies are used to tack your internet activities even when you are not in the site where the cookies are stored from. All major sites like facebook, google, etc. have cookies stored in your browser. What a cookie does is that it keeps track of what are you doing even after you exited their site. That is why you suddenly found an ad on facebook of a product you just checked on amazon or ebay. If you are not using tor, browse in incognito mode. However, browsing in incognito mode doesn’t guarantee your privacy expect the cookie part.
However, if you are using facebook in incognito mode while connected to a VPN and at the same time you are browsing some products in amazon, then the information will be stored in facebook server. Then, even when you are disconnected from VPN and open facebook in your normal browser, you will still see the ad related to the product you checked on amazon. So, you should take care of what you do and how you do to browse safely in internet.
Anonymous Web Surfing – Use ad-blockers
Tor browser mentioned above takes care of this problem automatically. However, if you are using other browsers install ad-blocker “ad-block plus”. This will block all the ads running on any site. Most of the ads also contain sophisticated ad codes that keep track of your internet activities specially when you encounter with a pop ad.
Anonymous Web Surfing – stop services that requires your data
Nowadays, everyone thinks that life is hard without Google, facebook, youtube, etc. However, these sites extracts and use massive amounts of your data to earn money (billions). If you want totally secure internet then you have to sacrifice some of such services. For google use duckduckgo. This is a search engine but never stores any of your data. They do advertising solely on the the search queries you typed and with affiliate marketing of products. The famous Edward Snowden said that you can expect perfect privacy and perfect safety at the same time. So, you have to compromise based on your importance.
Anonymous Web Surfing – why to browse anonymous
Apart from the security risks there are other genuine reasons to browse the web anonymously. Below are the advantages and needs to browse internet anonymously.
To overcome censorship
Governments in some countries like China, Iran and other countries are blocking accessing to certain websites like google, facebook, youtube, etc. By masking your location using a VPN, you can open all the sites that are blocked in these countries. Corporate, colleges are also blocking, so, one can use VPN to access these blocked sites.
To access sites are that country specific
Some of the sites especially the streaming sites are restricted to some regions or countries. Sites like Netflix, Hotstar, etc. are limited to US or India. So, you have a subscription in any of such services and you are travelling to another country. If you decide to stream any of these services, then you have to use a VPN and mask your connection to look like that you are using their service from the country that the service are not restricted.
In conclusion, in order to surf the internet anonymously, you need to use a secure browser like Tor with a VPN and you must be active and know what you are doing and what data you are ready to compromise. Do not just give away your data without thinking twice. If you really want perfect privacy and safety, you must be ready to give up some of the services which requires your data and information to have that service. Lastly, you must know the common practices you need to do to stay safe and browse anonymously on internet.
Do check the other articles on my blog and stay tune for more interesting articles. In any case, if I miss any point you think I should include, then comment down below or send me a mail on the contact page. I am more than happy to include it on the list. I have published VPN reviews of major VPN providers check them out by following the link below.
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