Browser Security

Updated: 1/14/24

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Online privacy is a major concern in the tech world, and by far the biggest privacy issues arise when you browse the internet. Why? Because online marketers of all stripes are keen to monetize you by following you around the web to track your browser activity and browser cookies, your IP address, and other device-specific identifiers. The best private browsers mitigate their ability to do so and make your online life a little more private. Private browsers are different from and in some ways better than so-called Incognito or Private Browsing mode in a typical browser.

How Are You Being Tracked Right Now?

Cookies are small bits of data that websites deposit in your browser’s storage to keep track of where you've already logged in and other site activity, such as when you have items in an online shopping cart. They’re essential to making the web more usable. Privacy issue arises with third-party cookies—those that are dropped into your browser not by the site you’re viewing but by a third party, most often Google, Facebook, or an advertising service. Other websites then have access to that information, letting them peruse your internet trail.

​Cookies are not the only threats to privacy. A more recent threat is fingerprinting, a way of using web page headers and JavaScript to build a profile of you based on your system configuration. Your browser fingerprint can consist of your browser type and version, operating system, plug-ins, time zone, language, screen resolution, installed fonts, and more. That means even if you turn off third-party cookies (Google has stated it plans to remove support for them in its Chrome browser some time in 2023), sites can often still identify you via fingerprinting.

In fact, fingerprinting is a more worrisome privacy concern than cookies. You can delete cookies at any time, but, unless you get a new device, you can’t escape your digital fingerprint. Another issue is the long string of characters some sites add when you copy a web address. Those identify you as well. A browser extension called ClearURLs (Opens in a new window) can help protect that kind of tracking.

TO KEEP YOUR BROWSER "PRIVATE" - DO THE FOLLOWING:

​1 - ENABLE "Do Not Track" in your Browsers!

2 - DISABLE "AutoFill" Feature in your Browser. (It's turned ON by Default). [An attacker can use this autofill feature against you and trick you into spilling your private information to hackers or malicious third parties. The simplest way to protect yourself against such phishing attacks is to disable form autofill feature in your browser, password manager or extension settings.

3 - ALWAYS "Clear your ENTIRE Browser History", upon exiting your Browser !!

4 - Use Privacy Badger, Ghostery or some Comparable "Tracking Prevention" Software for your Browser!

​5 - Use DUCKDUCKGO for your "Primary" Search Engine, instead of Google, Bing or Yahoo! (This Search Engine that does NOT track you).

​6 - Browser ToolBars can TRACK EVERY ACTION a user does Online, display Irritating ADs and

Serve as a "Portal" for MALICIOUS Software!!  DON'T USE ANY OF THEM !!

Here are a List of Popular Browser Toolbars:

AOL Toolbar

Yahoo Toolbar

Alexa Toolbar

Google Toolbar

Ask.com Toolbar

Netcraft Toolbar

StumbleUpon Toolbar

Compete.com Toolbar

Groove Search Toolbar

Microsoft Developer Toolbar

Microsoft Live Search Toolbar

Web Developer Toolbar for Firefox

And there are countless other toolbars. Don't use ANY Toolbars!

7 - ALWAYS Use "HTTPS Everywhere" as an "extension" for your Browser! (Using a VPN w/HTTPS is even better, because Hackers have found ways to "Strip" the "s" from HTTP, which sends your data "un-encrypted" through the Internet.  Note:  the "s" stands for 'secure'.

NOTE:  SSL Strip is an SSL stripping proxy, designed to make unencrypted HTTP sessions look as much as possible like HTTPS sessions. It converts https links to http or to https with a known private key

8 - Turn on 2FA/2-Factor (or Two-step) Authentication for Email or ANY Account that offers it !!

How Do You Know if You're Trackable?

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) publishes a Cover Your Tracks (Opens in a new window) webpage to test your browser’s susceptibility to tracking and fingerprinting. It uses a real tracking company—the name of which it does not reveal—for its tests. Be forewarned: It almost always reports that your browser has a unique fingerprint. Other tools you can use to see your digital fingerprint include AmIUnique (Opens in a new window) and Device Info (Opens in a new window). The latter has a section indicating whether any fingerprinting protection is detected.

Recommended Browsers:

​Brave is a free and open-source web browser developed by Brave Software, Inc. based on the Chromium web browser. Brave is a privacy-focused browser, which automatically blocks online advertisements and website trackers in its default settings.

Is a free-to-use web browser from DuckDuckGo, the tech company known for advocating internet privacy. It has a number of features and capabilities that clearly sets it apart from other internet browsers. For starters, it automatically rejects cookies–small bits of code that collect data from users such as device information, identifiers, location detail, and more–from most websites.

Essentially, DuckDuckGo Browser is a more private and secure alternative to commercially-available browsers like Google Chrome, FireFox or Microsoft Edge. Through its features, DuckDuckGo reportedly uses 60 percent less data compared to Chrome, making it more streamlined and faster.