Online Privacy Guide: Tips and Tools for Better Privacy and Security in 2024

Hackers and scammers are unrelenting in their efforts to compromise internet users. The FBI reported receiving over 880,418 cybercrime complaints in 2023, a 10% increase from the previous year. These threat actors want to access personal details such as usernames, passwords, credit card information and social security numbers. 

With your information, hackers can steal your money, use your identity to commit crimes or sell your private data on the dark web. Their attacks are growing increasingly sophisticated, with methods that range from phishing to social engineering and beyond. Your best bet for protecting your online privacy is to make it difficult for malicious actors to access your online activity. 

Cyberstalking involves monitoring and harassing a person using the internet. It can take many forms, including offensive messages, identity theft, threats, doxxing (posting sensitive information without permission), location tracking and blackmail.

The online privacy steps below can’t prevent all forms of stalking, but they can restore your sense of safety by protecting you from being physically stalked through your online identity. You can also learn to identify the patterns that online harassers use and keep a paper trail for police investigations.

In this digital era, most companies depend on user data to make a profit. The information you provide to businesses when creating an account or using their service is often pieced together to track you and provide targeted ads. That’s why we recommend finding out how a business handles your data before sharing it. You can usually tell by reading its privacy policy.

Aside from regular businesses, there are also data brokers whose main job is to collect your information, create a profile and sell it to marketing companies. Since data brokers are only interested in profiting off your data, your information could end up in the wrong hands as long as the criminal is willing to pay.

In repressive regimes, governments track online activities to crack down on free speech and victimize journalists, activists and the opposition. Even in countries that claim not to suppress free speech, your information might still be monitored. 

For example, the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand belong to the Five Eyes Alliance, which is a global surveillance network. This means that each country can monitor your internet use and share it with the network. The Five Eyes has expanded to include countries like Germany, Belgium, Italy and Denmark in what is known as the 14 Eyes Alliance. 

Although Chrome, Safari and Firefox are widely used web browsers, there are more private options, such as Brave. As we explain in our Brave review, this secure browser has built-in features to block ads, cross-site trackers and cookie banners. Brave also boasts excellent speeds and a trustworthy private search engine that won’t save your browsing history.

As we mentioned earlier, data brokers might have lots of your information. They usually get this private data by scraping social media sites, websites, public records and mobile apps. It’s difficult to know the exact information that data brokers have on you, but you can use data removal services to request removals on your behalf. 

Based on our tests, Surfshark’s Incogni is the best data removal tool. When you subscribe, it sends removal requests to over 180 data brokers. We found the automated process to be seamless and effective. You can track the progress of removal requests in your Incogni dashboard. 

Ads might seem harmless, but some are injected with malware — a practice known as malvertising. For example, some ads can quietly install adware on your device, tracking your browsing habits and displaying unwanted ads. Worse still, these ads might contain spyware, which is more insidious: It monitors everything you do online and can steal personal information. 

An ad blocker can prevent ads from appearing while you browse. As a result, ads can’t install unwanted applications on your device. We’ve tested multiple good ad blockers over the years, and uBlock Origin always stands out. It has lightweight and effective browser extensions, including options for Chrome, Chromium, MS Edge, Opera, Firefox and Safari.

Protecting your online privacy depends largely on the kind of information you share online. Don’t be too quick to share sensitive details about yourself on various websites, especially your email address, location and financial information. For example, if a website requires your email to access its content, you can use a temporary throwaway email instead. 

Most stalkers and online predators track their victims using social media. Some social media apps, such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, allow you to restrict who can view your profile and posts. Also, avoid making posts that reveal sensitive details, such as your location and financial information.

A VPN works on your operating system or browser by encrypting all your internet traffic, making it unreadable to anyone snooping around for your search history. The best VPNs employ AES-256 encryption, which will theoretically take millions of years to crack. A VPN also protects your privacy by hiding your online location.

ExpressVPN is our favorite VPN because it’s secure, fast and easy to use. The privacy bit is crucial because some VPNs, especially low-quality free VPNs, can log and sell your information — the very thing you’re trying to avoid. Only use VPNs that abide by a strict no-logs policy; you can find examples in our best VPN for privacy list. 

Verizon’s Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) shows that 80% of data breaches are caused by stolen, weak or compromised passwords. However, creating robust passwords isn’t always easy — they must be complex yet easy to remember. A password manager is the perfect solution because it generates passwords that are nearly impossible for intruders to guess.

Moreover, password managers save your passwords so you don’t have to remember them. For instance, 1Password — the best password manager on the market — will automatically fill in your password when you click its icon on a login page. Read our 1Password review. You can learn more about password managers by reading our compilation of the best password managers. 

Every day, thousands of malicious software programs are introduced onto the internet. The AV-TEST Institute registers over 450,000 malicious programs and potentially unwanted applications (PUA) daily. These include malware, viruses, scareware, adware, spyware and worms. An antivirus can detect and remove such files.

The best antivirus software is packed with features to ensure your device is malware-free. For example, Bitdefender provides real-time protection against viruses, which can alert you about harmful websites and downloads. It can also scan your device to find, quarantine or delete any suspicious files. Read our Bitdefender review.

Devices that haven’t been updated in a while are prime targets for malicious actors because they are more likely to have security vulnerabilities. Updates often include security patches and bug fixes. Data privacy advocates recommend setting your device to update automatically so that they can happen without your input.

Be sure to frequently update all the software and apps on your desktop and mobile devices, including privacy tools such as VPNs and antiviruses. However, beware of fake software scams: third-party pop-ups urging you to update an app immediately could actually be spyware that’s targeting your information.

If your phone or computer is compromised, a factory reset (or “format”) could be the only way to remove all the malicious code. However, you may lose all your data in the process. Back up your data on the cloud to retrieve it in the event of an emergency. Our iDrive review describes one excellent choice for all major operating systems that has zero-knowledge encryption. 

Another key reason for having a backup is the threat of ransomware. Hackers can take over networks and systems — they can lock the owners out and ask for a ransom in exchange for the data. You can learn more about the ins and outs of it in our ransomware guide. Check out our best online backup services to find a backup that works for you. 

Regular email providers like Gmail and Yahoo Mail lack some privacy-focused features. For example, Gmail doesn’t offer encrypted emails, so the company can look through your emails to gather data for advertisers or its AI services if they have your permission. Opt for a secure email service and make sure you don’t permit any apps to gather data from your devices.

The best secure email providers, like Proton Mail, offer end-to-end encryption, meaning only the sender and receiver can see the emails.