Now that you’ve taken the red pill and realized the realities of living a life connected to the Internet, how can you better protect yourself in the future? There are several basic tools available for the privacy-conscious; most of them free…
If you would like to keep Facebook in check and minimize its invasion into your online life, check out Disconnect, a browser extension available for Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. The purpose of this extension is to “help people understand and control the data they share online.” Disconnect will disable third-party tracking, depersonalize searches, identify and block information requests from websites, and allows the user to easily unblock these requests if so chosen..
The service Google Alerts will actually send regular email updates every time your name is queried. Both of these simple steps can help you monitor the information other people are looking at pertaining to you and where they are accessing it from. Now that you have this handy guide to walk you through how to purge that data, channel your inner-Jason Bourne every so often and control your data like the secret agent you always wanted to be! Be sure to check out a related article by online privacy expert Dan Tynan for more information.
To help further minimize your digital footprint, privacy advocate Moxie Marlinspike created a service called GoogleSharing, which allows users to search through Google without being tracked. The technology scrambles search requests that are sent to Google, making it impossible to tell where or from whom the request is coming from…
Even with these precautions there is no absolute way to make your information available only to you. Once something is done online, expect it to be there forever. Don’t bother thinking you can hide anything online because there is nowhere to hide.
The best strategy for reducing your footprint is to remember to step back every once in awhile, and not rely on the Internet to service every facet of your life. Every picture doesn’t need to be geo-tagged; every new social media site does not have to be joined permanently. Every detail of your personal life does not have to be put on display for others to see. Just like you take steps to protect your physical information, remember to take steps to monitor and protect your digital information as well.via Maximum PC | How To Erase Your Digital Footprint – Page 2.
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