The Internet is not like your home where you can decide who to let in and who not to let in. It has become a global village where different Ads are fighting their way to know you as much as they can. They want to know about you so they can leverage that information and sell it to that one lucky bidder who is bidding the highest for it. We live in a world where the big internet giants such as Amazon and Facebook know you more than you know about yourself. They keep track of your journey as you browse from one website to another.
You might have got scared of your privacy after reading this, but don’t worry, we have a solution for this. We will walk you through six trusted browser extensions that will help you in maintaining your privacy by monitoring and blocking the trackers along with invisible ads.
These extensions will not block the intrusion 100%, but they can significantly improve your privacy up to a great extent by safeguarding the internet activity. There is a lot of information, and there is a lot to know about a person. Still, there is some information which you would want to keep private such as you would not want these giants to know about your medical conditions and what purchases you are having related to them. However, some targeted ads are not as sensitive, such as those that relate to your interests and tastes.
When you block and stop the hidden trackers from loading, websites will have lesser control over your information. When you get rid of the extra processing, the website’s loading speed will also improve. While extensions will somehow protect your privacy, there is one drawback: you can have trouble accessing and loading certain websites if you don’t give them the option to track you. So the choice is up to you, you can either switch on and off the extensions as per your requirement, or you can make the judgment if you really need that website or find somewhere else what you are looking for.
HTTPS Everywhere
While browsing, if you see that small green lock on your screen, then you can be assured that the website you are viewing has been loaded and connected with HTTPS-encryption. This is a good indicator to confirm that the website has not been altered or hijacked while it was loading, and also whatever you are submitting to it has been going to the source of that website. There is an extension “HTTPS Everywhere” from Electronic Frontier Foundation. This not-for-profit-based internet group will make your life easier by automatically loading the websites supported by HTTPS. The extension can be supported by most used browsers such as Chrome, Opera, Firefox, and Edge.
Privacy Badger
The next extension in line with EFF is the Privacy Badger. This extension is the all-rounder as it can block the hidden third-party tracking on your websites. This extension works by looking at different components of the webpage, and afterward, it picks which one is tracking you from one website to another. After they are identified, they are blocked from being loaded. The Privacy Badger tracks and understands your journey as you move around on the web. The only thing you need to do is to install it and leave it to work itself without any configurations. As Electronic Frontier Foundation, these extensions work on all the most used browsers.
uBlock Origin
It is not wrong to say that the internet is free and open to all due to Ads’ dominance. The internet is there for everyone to use, but it often requires your personal information in exchange for it. Ads are great at learning the pattern of your activities on the browser and how you move from one point to another on the web. They apply these learnings by showing you those Ads that have a higher probability of you clicking on them. This Adblocker not only works on blocking the Ads but also stops the tracking of its code.
uBlock Origin is simple, effective, and lightweight to use. Also, it has the trust of millions of individuals around the world. Another important feature is its customization for specific users (Just a warning to be aware of impersonators who use similar names to pretend they are better ones). The Internet is free then how websites earn money; you got that right, they earn from Ads. So if you don’t want to block their money, you can buy the subscription as the whole idea behind running the Ad was to make some bucks.
uBlock Origin is available on Edge, Chrome, and Firefox, and other browsers can easily take advantage of the extension as it is open-sourced.
PixelBlock and ClearURLs
We have talked about the invisible tracking on the websites above; now, we will discuss how emails can be compromised by some invisible pixels. They alert the sender that you have checked the email. They often come from different brands. To deal with this, you can have a PixelBlock extension in your Chrome browser, which will stop these hidden email trackers from loading and taking your information. It is easier to indicate through tiny red-eye in the inbox if it finds any tracker.
When more than one email is there with links, it alerts which one to open. The extension is available on Edge, Chrome and Firefox, it is attached to your browser and continuously monitors and removes the junk from all the links in the browser. It consumes more space than other extensions, but its use is justified.
Firefox’s Multi-Account Containers
Firefox has its own extension for its user’s named Multi-Account Containers; it is designed to separate their browsing activities easily. You can containerize different activities, such as having one container for work and another container for personal use. This will save the trouble of having multiple browsers, and you can also easily segregate and manage the data accordingly. These containers are easily customized, such as using Google and Facebook in one container, which will make it difficult to track your interests.
