Simple Ways To Protect Yourself Online
Breaches. Identity theft. Cyber crime. Whenever you go online, browse the web, or use your favorite app, you put yourself at risk of having your information stolen or falling victim to a virus (or malware). Prioritizing threats and maintaining your privacy is crucial to keeping yourself—and your devices—secure. Whether you use security software, strong passwords, vigilance, or other methods, maintaining your privacy/security should remain at the top of your mind at all times. Here are a few simple ways to protect yourself when you go online.
Don’t Click On Suspicious Links
Online safety starts with common sense. And the most common sense thing you can do online is to avoid clicking on suspicious links. If a link seems suspicious or something doesn’t seem quite right about a website, the best defense is to simply avoid clicking on it. Typos, strange URL destinations, and misspelled words are all red flags that you should take seriously. Keeping an eye on weird links can help prevent phishing and can help you avoid serious privacy problems with ease.
Delete Cookies and Cache
Every time you get online—whether it’s via your desktop PC or a mobile device—websites will always ask if you will accept their cookies. Cookies are tiny text files in your browser to remember information about your visit to that particular site. As these files accumulate, they start slowing down your browsing experience. Additionally, some cookies actually serve as tracking devices for online behaviors and browsing history. To address this issue, you must clear your cache and delete your browsing history frequently. Experts recommend clearing your browser cache frequently to avoid potential security, privacy, and performance problems.
Use a Password Manager
Password managers are one of the greatest inventions of modern times. Remembering a bunch of passwords for every single site, or service you use can be a massive hassle. Nobody wants to remember that many passwords, let alone a bunch of complex passwords. And passwords must be complex in order to be remotely secure. Most experts recommend 12 or more characters, with a nice mix of different letters, numbers, cases, and symbols. That means you need to get creative when you’re making your passwords. Keeping track of them, of course, can prove difficult. Luckily, password managers serve as fantastic databases to keep all your passwords in a single repository. Using a master password/passphrase—created using the password best practices we mentioned above—a password manager makes it so much easier and more convenient to protect your privacy while using your favorite apps and sites. Password managers are available as standalone utilities and as part of larger security suites choosing the best one for you is ultimately going to depend on your needs, the sites you visit, and how you intend to integrate it into your overall security framework.
Install a Good Internet Security Program
Protecting yourself online using common Sense techniques and other precautions it’s pretty helpful on the overall. But to really get the most out of your online protection, you must install a good quality Internet Security program. There are many different kinds of internet security programs out there. They range from free to one time purchase to prescription models. Each of these has their own. Free services usually require manual updates but typically have a lot of the different virus definitions available in their databases so they can help mitigate some issues. Most computers come with a basic security program pre-installed. But to command more power and take more agency over your security, a maximum or premium model is the way to go. Not only do these models contain the typical antivirus and antibiotics, but they have a whole host of other features.
Use HTTPS For Everything
If you’ve used the internet at all in the past few decades, you’re undoubtedly familiar with HTTP or the hypertext transfer protocol. This protocol appears in front of every URL you’ve ever visited. To make the web safer, HTTPS was developed as a more secure protocol. HTTPS encrypts all data sent between a user’s browser and a website server. That renders it more difficult for malicious attackers to intercept it. Encryption makes it unreadable so it’s much safer. The added security makes it safer and more private to use most websites. Websites like your bank and e-commerce sites such as Amazon use this protocol to keep their users safe. By using https, the web becomes a safer place for everyone. So when you go to different websites, make sure they have an https protocol.