Today we will feature a guest article by Britney Wilkins, who writes for the online college.

Whether you’re specifically trying to hide out from a stalker, keep your online presence minimal, or just prevent any damage from being done, hiding your online tracks is important to protecting your personal identity, your data and your reputation. From social media to online shopping to password-protected sites and accounts, there are countless ways that we can reveal personal information about ourselves without even realizing it. Here are several reasonable tips for hiding your tracks online, for the sake of self-preservation in all forms.

• Browse privately. Whatever browser you have, select the setting that allows you to browse privately.
• Watch your cookies. Change your preferences so that your browser doesn’t accept cookies, or at the very least, you don’t accept third-party cookies. Cookies store information about your web surfing and online habits, so it’s best to clean them up or refuse to accept them.
• Don’t let your browser remember passwords. Never let a site save your passwords or credit card information, and try to change your browser settings so that it doesn’t automatically fill in password boxes either.
• Clear history. If you’re worried about another person in your office or household spying on your web surfing habits, clear your history every time you log off.
• Encrypt files and e-mail messages. You don’t have to worry about anyone intercepting your messages if you encrypt them in the first place. Use a free service or choose to encrypt attachments like Adobe PDFs before you send.
• Lock your social media sites to approved friends only. Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites let you control privacy settings so that only you can determine the people who view your accounts.
• Don’t log onto open Wi-Fi accounts. Airports, cafes and libraries often have open access Wi-Fi accounts, but those networks are especially vulnerable to hackers and online spying. Make sure your personal wireless service is password protected.
• Use an anonymous proxy server. An anonymous proxy server acts as a go-between for your IP address and the greater Internet, meaning that when you visit websites, the anonymous middle address will show up, not yours.
• Don’t shop online: It’s extremely convenient to shop online, but if you’re seriously worried about someone stealing your credit card information, don’t bother paying bills or sharing your data on the Internet.

Thanks Britney, though there are sites like EyeSpyPro.com that are completely secure, PCI compliant, and does not sell any of our customers information.

You can contact Britney at: britneywilkins81@yahoo.com

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 at 10:36 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.