There’s no doubt that the Internet is a huge part of our lives now. From shopping to socializing, you can find almost anything or anyone online. However, it can also be very dangerous if you don’t take some basic precautions. The idea of someone watching what we do over the Internet might scare most people but thankfully there are many things that you can do to protect your privacy online!

1. Be careful what you install

The first step to protecting your privacy online is making sure that the apps you use aren’t accessing any sensitive data. This means being careful with apps that ask for access to your location, camera, microphone, etc., and making sure that once an app has been installed on your device it isn’t constantly updating itself in the background. If an app seems sketchy or asks for too many permissions when installing it (or updates itself without asking), don’t install it at all—it’s better to be safe than sorry!

2. Watch where you browse

• Public WiFi is the number one way to expose your private information online. Hackers can easily intercept your internet traffic and steal sensitive information such as passwords, account numbers and more. Always use a VPN when on public WiFi networks. A VPN will encrypt all of your data so that even if someone intercepts it, they won’t be able to see what’s inside of it.
• Use Tor Browser to surf the web anonymously: While this isn’t perfect, it’s much better than nothing when it comes to anonymity online (and yes – I know there are other browsers out there like Firefox & Chrome). The Tor network uses multiple layers of encryption so that no one can access any information about who is using the network or where they are browsing from!

3. Use a VPN and encrypted services

A VPN can be thought of as a tunnel between your computer and the internet. When you use a VPN, what happens is that all of your internet traffic goes through that tunnel before reaching its destination. So when you’re using a VPN, it looks like you’re accessing the internet from wherever the server is located—not where you actually are. This benefits users in many ways; for example:

• You can access websites that may be blocked by your ISP (for example because they’re blocked in your country or region).
• If someone was to try spying on what sites you visit while connected to public Wi-Fi, they wouldn’t know which sites are being visited since all their network traffic goes through an encrypted tunnel.

4. Be careful with your data

The final, and perhaps most important thing to remember is that you must be careful with your data. Data is any information that is collected, recorded or stored about you in any way. It can include things like your name, address, phone number and email address as well as other details such as age or income level.

Data collection takes place everywhere on the internet—from social media sites like Facebook to news websites like the New York Times. Most sites will use cookies (small pieces of code) to collect data about you without having to ask for it directly from you each time they want information about who visits their site; however some will require permission before storing anything about someone’s web browsing habits so that they understand how visitors engage with different types of content online.

Once a website has this information it may use it for various reasons which include advertising purposes as well as providing users with customized experiences based on previous searches performed within certain categories such as sports scores or local events listings but there are also some cases where companies share this data among themselves so they can target ads more effectively towards certain groups of consumers based on demographics such as gender preference etcetera – all depending upon what kind of business model was used when creating said platform originally!

5. Take advantage of privacy settings

The fifth thing that you can do to protect your privacy online is to take advantage of privacy settings. These are available on many platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat. Privacy settings also exist on your phone and on your browser. It’s important to know what these features are so you can make the most of them if you want to keep information private.

Conclusion

The Internet is a big part of our lives now and the temptation to share and post everything can be very high, but before you do that, think again if you really want to publish some things – your future self may regret it! 

I hope this article has helped you understand the importance of online privacy and some of the ways you can protect yourself from prying eyes and digital surveillance. If we all work together to protect our data and privacy, then there will be less abuse on social media, less government surveillance, and more freedom for everyone!