Taking care of the security of your personal information is not just the responsibility of companies: you also need to take certain precautions and protect your privacy online! But how exactly do you do this?

Certain measures can be taken to prevent information leaks and hacker attacks from occurring and putting your data and peace of mind at risk. Surprisingly, these recommendations are not difficult: they will just take a little time.

You can believe it: there is no secure 100% service. Therefore, all the care you can take with your online privacy is not enough!

Is taking care of online privacy expensive?

No! In fact, much of the content is merely informative and there is no need to invest a single cent. However, some paid solutions can be very interesting to make your online privacy even stronger.

Many software programs make your smartphone much more secure, and this is especially important if you like to shop online, for example. Many people still use their mobile devices to access their bank accounts, but they don't take any extra precautions!

Follow these tips: protect yourself!

It's time to make your device more secure against threats to your online privacy. Follow all the recommendations to the letter:

Use unique and complex passwords

Many people use easy passwords to access their online services. Even worse: some people even use the same password for everyone! Considering the number of data leaks that occur on the internet, it goes without saying how risky it is to do this, right?

Never use the same password for more than one digital service, even if it is difficult (or practically impossible) to guess. Use special characters, upper and lower case letters, and numbers to strengthen your security. In addition, the more characters a password has, the harder it will be to crack.

A great way to avoid having to deal with several different passwords at the same time is to use a password manager: this is an app that stores all your passwords with encryption, meaning you only need to know the master password for your password vault. 

These applications usually have password generator mechanisms: therefore, not even you will know what password is used to access their services. 

Google has a free service password management. However, there are other paid solutions that are even more robust to guarantee your online privacy.

Use two-factor authentication (2FA)

You've probably heard about this security step: it's an app that generates numeric codes, renewed every 60 seconds. The correct code must be entered after validating the app's password, acting as an additional layer of protection.

Some services use SMS to enable 2FA, so make sure you always have your contact information up to date. If you lose access to your phone number, you’ll need to contact the service’s support team to remove the authentication, which can take a few days to complete.

By default, Google Authenticator and Authy are the best-known apps for this purpose. There are several other solutions, and some of them were created specifically to use certain applications.

Install a security application

Taking care of your online privacy without installing a good antivirus/antimalware application is a very complicated task. Phishing attacks or threats that can leak all your information are much more present on the web than you might think!

There are very solid free solutions for smartphones, such as Kaspersky and the Avira, two giants of online security and privacy. However, their respective paid versions unlock all their features – and it’s not expensive!

Mobile security software is generally quite inexpensive. Depending on the plan you choose, it can be installed on multiple devices at the same time.

Additional features to protect your online privacy, such as blocking unwanted cookies, robust password generators, and browser plug-ins are just a few examples of what’s included in their premium versions. Don’t think of this as an expense, but rather as an investment!

Use a more private browser

Google Chrome comes standard on all Android smartphones. Despite being quite popular and functional, it is one of the apps that absorbs the most user information through telemetry!

Telemetry is a set of technologies integrated into software that aim to understand the usage patterns of its users. To do so, they collect various types of data; in the case of Chrome, there are many.

Tor, Brave, Firefox, and Edge are some of the most private browsers on the market, as they collect little to no information from their users. You might want to give them a try: some of them have some really cool extra features that Chrome for mobile doesn’t support!

Be careful what you share your location with

Many apps ask for access to your location the first time you open them: but is this really necessary? Most of the time, no.

Except for really specific cases, such as Google Maps, Uber and many other urban mobility apps, most apps simply don't need to know where you are all the time. 

Therefore, disable your location for applications that do not need this information to function properly: if possible, disable GPS completely when it is not needed!

Download files from trusted sources

Avoid downloading applications that are not available in the official stores of your respective operating systems. The reason for this is that both Google and Apple check the files that are inserted into their stores before they are made available for download; this does not happen if the software comes from external sources.

If you get infected, you could suffer from leaks of passwords, personal data (full name, addresses and various documents), credit cards, etc. Needless to say, it would be dangerous and complicated to clean up this mess, right?

And you – are you taking care of your online security?