Check your anonymity

Checking my anonymity

If you haven’t thought about it or paid much attention, keep in mind that your computer has a unique fingerprint with the following characteristics:

• IP address;
• Country;
• City;
• Operating system;
• Browser name and version;
• Screen resolution, and more.

Here’s why you might want to know this. It’s simple – there are free specialized services, like ours, designed to determine your anonymity on the web. The purpose of these tools is to detect your IP address, check how visible your computer is on the internet, analyze how well the information provided by your computer/browser matches the data associated with your IP address, and even determine whether you are banned somewhere.
In fact, checking for bans is one of the most common reasons why users seek to browse the internet anonymously. We offer our online service — a proxy checker. This tool allows you to verify whether a mail server’s IP address is listed on any of the 220 largest global spam lists.
How it works: When you visit the privacy check service, all information about you is recorded. Upon subsequent visits, the system identifies you again and determines your privacy status and any bans associated with your IP address.

How to Protect Yourself on the Internet

Of course, stumbling upon such a service can be unsettling — practically all information about you, your computer, and your location is out in the open. We tend to believe that everything we do on the internet, the websites we visit, and so on, is hidden or anonymous. However, this is far from true. In fact, completely private browsing on the World Wide Web doesn’t exist. The only way to achieve full privacy would be to give up the internet entirely and switch to a basic feature phone. But it’s unlikely you’d sacrifice that level of convenience.
To protect yourself as much as possible from prying eyes, there are ways to enhance your online security — simply follow these tips:

• Do not sign up for discount cards offered by stores during purchases. Yes, you might miss out on special deals and won’t save a certain amount of money, but your personal data will remain safe and won’t end up in unknown hands. Always remember — discount cards are primarily issued to gain access to your personal information, not to genuinely please you with yet another discount.
• Delete your accounts from all social networks. If that’s not possible, keep only the essential ones but remove all your personal data and replace your profile photo with a generic image.

You’re probably aware of why it’s a bad idea to post stories with photos and geolocation. Simply put, it could lead to you being robbed, fired, or judged just for a regular post on your page. In fact, insurance companies and banks often review your social media accounts, and there’s a chance they could deny loans or increase interest rates if the information on your profiles raises concerns.

• Disable the automatic Wi-Fi search feature on your phone. Some companies place routers throughout cities to track your phone’s MAC address, gaining access to your current location and movement patterns. This is done to collect information about you and sell it to third parties.
• Avoid using debit or credit cards to pay for goods in stores. Withdraw cash and pay with it instead. When you make a card payment, the bank collects and organizes information about your purchases and movements, and it can sell this data to third parties if needed.
• Set restrictions in your smartphone settings to deny access to your location, contacts, and personal information.
• Install a VPN to prevent your internet service provider from tracking you. A paid VPN is preferable, as free ones often collect your data and sell it to third parties.
• Install an ad blocker that blocks cookies and other data tracking your online activity.

And most importantly, before registering on any website, app, or making a purchase, think about why they need your personal information. Your data belongs to you and you alone. Protect it.