When you browse the internet, you always leave a trace of everything you consult and are exposed to different threats. From cyber criminals who want to impersonate your identity to malware and companies that look for your data to profit. If you want to be protected, you will have to be yourself who does it by avoiding certain behaviors or stop doing certain things. These are the things you should not do on the internet to be sure.
1.Sign in with the Facebook and Google buttons
In most of the login pages, you will find the instant access buttons of Google and Facebook. But while they may seem like a convenient way to access that eliminates the hassle of remembering or creating numerous passwords for different websites, it also involves compromising your privacy.
Companies like Facebook that depend on advertising to earn income realized that their services cannot be everywhere. So they made authentication frames. By clicking on one of these login buttons, you agree to share your activity in the third-party service with hosting companies such as Facebook and Google (and vice versa).
So, for example, if you sign up for a children's clothing store through a Facebook login button, Facebook will know that you are pregnant or that you have children. Therefore, the social network will start sending you product announcements for children and possibly exchange this data with other companies in the same sector.
Over time, the login buttons allow technology companies to join your digital profile to accurately predict the ads with which they are most likely to get your attention. In addition, the website you are linking to gets more information about this relationship than you probably need. A good example: when you create a new Spotify account through Facebook, it automatically retrieves your public profile, your birthday and your friends list.
Therefore, it is better not to use the login buttons and, if you have been using them for a while, go to your Facebook or Google account settings to revoke access to any service to which you have linked it.
Apple, by the way, has set out to offer a privacy-focused alternative with its latest authentication API. Call Start session with Apple, unlike Facebook or Google, just share information with third-party services and even give the option of hiding your email address. Apple has been able to provide this mainly because most of its revenue does not come from advertising and does not have to snoop around you.
2.Give your personal email address
Nor should you easily give your email address. Unless you plan to actively use the website, you should consider registering with a temporary or disposable email.
Disposable email addresses are not as basic as they were a decade ago. You can have them redirected to your own ID as long as you need the website and, once you're done, delete it with a click.
Browser extensions such as Burner Emails also automatically generate a unique disposable address for you to enter each time they detect an email field in an online form or on a registration page. From the control panel of Burner Emails, you can quickly disable the ones you don't want and forward messages from the rest.
3.Save passwords in your browser
Most browsers ask you if you want to save the password every time you log in or register on a new platform. But you should never hit that "S" button.
The password manager built into the browsers is not as secure as it is supposed to be. In most scenarios, your passwords will be stored in a plain text format that any intruder can access with a few changes. In the past, there have also been a lot of cases in which the passwords of thousands of users were compromised.
We recommend changing to a password manager. These tools are designed to protect your credentials and, best of all, they work in all applications and operating systems.
4. Scroll quickly by the terms and conditions
I am sure that we have all done it: moving at full speed through the terms and conditions so that we can quickly reach the exciting part. However, today, doing this can be really harmful to your personal data and can have serious consequences.
We understand. The terms and conditions are long and often too complex for a non-lawyer brain to understand.
Fortunately, there are a few signs that you can search to understand what you are accepting. You can search for common terms such as "information" and "data." Or you can go to help sites like TOS; DR, which summarize well-known service policies in simple language (in English).
5. Navigate without HTTPS
When you access a website, you may have noticed that the browser automatically adds a few additional characters before the URL. One of them is "HTTP", an internet protocol that determines the way a website structures and transmits data.
A more encrypted and private update than HTTP, called HTTPS, was released a while ago. Its highlight is that any information that a website exchanges with the server is secure and cannot be used covertly by intruders. Unfortunately, HTTP is still valid and many websites have not felt the need to switch to HTTPS, which leaves your data vulnerable to security flaws.
Until this changes, it is wise to stay away from non-HTTPS sites. You can also install a free extension for the browser that requires you to access the Internet with HTTPS and each service you visit.
6. Allow the cookies and leave them there
You may not think twice in the Allow cookies pop-up window when you visit a site for the first time. But you should do it.
Cookies are small pieces of information that companies store in the browser so they know that you are t when you visit them again to show ads and personalized ads. While the cookies They were born as an ingenious tool for developers years ago, that is no longer the case. The cookies They barely have encryption and can easily end up in the wrong hands.
Unfortunately, most websites do not work as intended when deactivating the cookies completely. So what is the way out? You put them in self-destruct mode because, if you didn't register, you probably won't use that website.
To do this, you will need an extension for the third-party browser such as Cookie AutoDelete, since most browsers do not have a native configuration for it.
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