We all are aware that our ISPs (Internet Service Provider) keeps spying on our web browsing and our history. It basically tracks the following information:
- The website URLs you click
- What files you download,
- When you login or logout,
- The web pages you visit,
- How much time you spent on the web page, etc.
The reason for this tracking is to understand your personality and come up with the search results beforehand. It is all part of Artificial Intelligence. No doubt, this is quite an effective technique and also saves a lot of time for the users on doing the whole search from the start. Rather they can enjoy simply by signing in and luckily, the data which suits them will automatically come on their screens.
But, along with these pros, there is a big threat to your Online Privacy as each online activity is getting tracked. Also, it gives rise to chances of getting your information leaked and it is quite a big problem. But don’t worry, you can stop ISP from spying on you.
Ways to Restrict your ISPs from Tracking You
There are several ways available that will help in order to hide your Online browsing history like:
Using VPN or TOR Browsers
These tools are a great help to maintain your online privacy to the maximum level. As they hide your IP address and make your identity anonymous. Thus, with them, you can enjoy Internet surfing without any fear of getting caught.
VPN (Virtual Private Network) allows you to browse any website with an anonymous identity. Basically, once you are connected with a VPN, it hides your original IP address thus making any information regarding you becomes inaccessible. In the same way, if you use TOR browsers, your online identity becomes hidden and you can enjoy complete internet surfing anonymously.
Deleting the Cookies
Cookies are one of the most common practices to track your activities performed online. We all have faced such situation:
You go to a certain website, before proceeding any further, your screen shows:
“This website eat cookies”
There is also a privacy policy attached regarding this which I’m sure, no one will read at all. We simply just accept them in order to move forward. However, they claim that the sole purpose behind this is to enhance your experience on their website. Somehow, this is true but it also records all your activity performed online.
Thus by not allowing them, you can simply hide your browsing from being tracked. But one must know what would happen if you delete the cookies.
So basically, cookies record your data like login information, items you had stored in your shopping cart, etc. But once you have deleted the cookies, all this information would be erased and then you have to log in everything again because the website would not recognize you then.
Restrict Location Details
Many websites demand your location to send you more personalized information and search results depending on your location. Thus it does track your activities performed online. But you can stop this by not allowing browsers to access your location. There are ways to restrict browser from using this information:
Chrome
Go to Preferences > Settings > Advanced > Content settings, and choose the option of Disallow or Ask for the request of a location whenever you visit a site
Microsoft Edge
To turn off location requests, you will have to do it from the main computer settings. Then go to Privacy and choose the location option. Now turn off Microsoft Edge.
Firefox
Type “about:config” in the URL bar and after that ‘geo.enabled’. To avoid Firefox’s repeated requests for sending your location to any website you visit, double-click to disable location entirely
Safari
Preferences > Privacy, and select ‘Disable Location Services’ or ‘Ask’
Using Privacy Mode of Browser
Whenever you use a public computer, make sure to activate the privacy mode of the browser. Doing so will restrict third-party cookies from tracking your online activities. The way to do this is by selecting Private or Incognito mode from the browser toolbar.
But,
A point to remember:
Many people think that by using Private or Incognito mode, their IP addresses would be completely hidden by third parties including ISPs. However, it's not true. The only difference between simple browsing and Incognito browsing is that it will just not store your search history but your IP address will still be visible to the ISPs. Thus do not rely completely on this mode for hiding your browsing history.
So, these were some of the ways through which you can restrict ISPs from spying on your browser history. They are not difficult at all to implement but provide you with the benefit of online privacy by hiding your search history.
