Using the Internet Securely and Privately
May 1, 2020 00:00 · 1637 words · 8 minute read
Using the Internet
This question is asked constantly online: How should I use the internet safely? Should I use a VPN, Tor, or both? While the answer isn’t binary, it doesn’t need to be extremely complicated and there are straightforward rules you can follow based on your goals while using the web.
Anonymity & Private Browsing
If you’re looking to generally browse the internet, read things online, or do web research, you should turn to Tor Browser. It is a derivative of Firefox that is created by Tor Project to run through their anonymized network. You can do most of the normal things you’d do on a browser within Tor Browser. It’s easy to install, intuitive to use, and offers great protection not only to yourself, but also adds to the “noise” of the network to help better hide those individuals or groups using it to protect themselves from harm. Its main purpose is to provide anonymity and strong security settings turned on by default. While Tor Browser is great, it’s not a silver bullet and here’s a recommended list of things you should and shouldn’t do on the Tor network.
What you should do with Tor Browser:
- Browse the web in general
- Read the news on your favourite sites and online magazines
- Perform web research
- Connect to sites that might be blocked or censored in your country
- See if your favourite platforms offer .onion addresses, such as:
What you shouldn’t do with Tor Browser:
- Stream videos from sites like YouTube or similar as this slows down the whole Tor network by using large amounts of bandwidth
- Download or torrent large files
- Log into your online banking or other financial websites. Most banks outright block traffic coming from Tor and will likely freeze your account temporarily if they detect a login from Tor
- Log into online accounts such as your Google accounts or social media accounts unless you’re using their .onion address as mentioned above
Tor on desktop
Tor Browser is first and foremost a tool for anonymity while using the Internet. One of the topics debated regularly is whether or not you should ever login to your online accounts while using Tor Browser. The main reason it isn’t recommended is that you are de-anonymyzing yourself by doing so, which defeats one of the main goals of Tor Browser. For most people using Tor Browser, this will not be a life-or-death situation, but it is still generally recommended you don’t login into online services while using Tor Browser, unless you anonymously created those accounts and only access them over the Tor network or you’re using the .onion address of the service provider.
You can get Tor Browser from the link below:
The Tor Browser developers recommend that you do not resize the Tor Browser window when you launch the application. You should just use it in the default size when it opens up otherwise you could be de-anonymized by your screen size combined with other identifiable information.
Tor on mobile
iOS
iOS has limited Tor functionality because of the way the operating system is designed. The best option currently is Onion Browser which is available free on the App Store. This browser allows you to connect to the Tor network similarly to Tor Browser on desktops.
You can download it at the link below:
Android
On Android, there is an official version of Tor Browser that can be downloaded and used for free. You have the option to download the .apk installer directly from Tor Browser’s website or you can download the application from Google Play Store or F-Droid.
You can find all of the relevant links below:
General usage tips
- Regularly refresh your identity by click the New Identity button in the top right corner of the browser window
- If your government blocks Tor, during the setup of Tor Browser you can choose to connect through a bridge to circumvent censorship
- Don’t add any extra add-ons, plugins, or extensions to the browser
Contribute to Tor
If you’re also interested in contributing to the strength of the Tor network, you can follow our guide here on how to quickly setup a Tor relay node.
https://blog.godsordevils.org/posts/run-a-tor-relay/
Securely Using Online Services and Internet-connected apps
Using a VPN
VPNs are similar to Tor in that they encrypt and route all of your computer’s traffic to another destination before you reach the open Internet. They’re useful if you’re on an untrusted network, which is any network that you don’t control. This includes networks at an AirBnB, hotel, library, coffee shop, airport, or any other public WiFi network you might come across. A VPN can prevent bad actors on those networks from trying to snoop all of your network traffic. VPN’s can also be used to prevent your ISP (Internet Service Provider) from monitoring your traffic and to get around government censorship or blocked websites. When installed on your computer or mobile phone, all of your device’s traffic will be routed through the VPN, including your browser, mail applications, social media applications, file backup applications, games, and chat applications.
We recommend using Mullvad’s VPN service. They have many benefits to using their service:
- A solid track record and lack of sleezy marketing tactics that many other VPNs participate in
- Affordable and simple flat-rate
- Require almost no personal information to sign up
- Make it easy to create anonymous accounts by sending them cash in the mail
- Support all the right protocols for secure connections
You can find more about Mullvad’s VPN at the link below:
As Mullvad have applications on most major platforms, we recommend using their service both on desktop, Android, and iOS. This will be the underpinning of all of the usage instructions below, which assume that you have your VPN enabled and active.
General VPN tips and disclaimers
VPN Tips:
- On iOS devices you’ll need to enable Connect on demand otherwise your VPN will be disconnected whenever the device goes to sleep. The Mullvad iOS app will automatically do this for you, but if you use a third-party app such as Wireguard or Passepartout, then you’ll need to manually enable Connect on demand for each connection profile.
- OpenVPN is a tried-and-true protocol you can rely on and Wireguard is a new protocol that is being adopted rapidly
- Try to connect to the nearest VPN server to your location to get the best connection speeds
- VPNs will always be a bit slower than your normal Internet connection but don’t be afraid to try changing to a different VPN server location if you’re experiencing extremely slow speeds
Warning: Not all VPNs are created equally. Many of them are not transparent about their security and privacy benefits, have systems that log your usage, or can be owned by other less-than-favorable companies. VPN review sites are often heavily sponsored or run by the VPN companies they review. We recommend you research any VPN provider you might want to use and look for independant audits of their service or reviews by individuals in the security community.
Desktop browser
We recommend using Firefox browser for your online activity. It’s open source, works well, has a modern look-and-feel, and has a number of useful plugins that can greatly improve your privacy while using it.
You can download Firefox below:
Once installed, you should install the following plugins:
These plugins collectively will ensure you’re connecting to websites securely using HTTPS and will block most advertisers and websites from tracking you across the Internet.
If you’d like to go one step further, you can install NoScript, which will block Javascript from running on most websites. This can increase your privacy and security online but at the expense of breaking many sites and requiring that you adjust your NoScript settings as you’re browsing:
Mobile browser
iOS
As mentioned above, we recommend Firefox on iOS as your main browser. The limitations of iOS browsers mean that they are all essentially like Safari but with a few additional features built-in. Firefox on iOS has additional content blockers built into it that can help reduce your browsing footprint across the Internet.
You can download Firefox on iOS below:
For enhanced browsing protection, you can open Firefox on iOS, click the menu icon in the bottom right, go into the Settings -> Tracking Protection and enable Strict mode of their tracking protection. This may break the functionality of some websites, but it is easy to temporarily turn off by clicking on the shield in the top-left corner of the app and turning off Enhanced Tracking Protection while you’re on that site.
Android
We recommend Firefox on Android as your main browser. One of the benefits of Firefox on Android is that it can have the same plugins installed as the desktop version of Firefox.
You can download Firefox on Android below:
Once installed, you should install the following plugins by going to the links below from Firefox for Android:
These plugins collectively will ensure you’re connecting to websites securely using HTTPS and will block most advertisers and websites from tracking you across the Internet.
Final thoughts
While there is no silver bullet to securely, anonymously, and privately use the Internet, there are some straightforward rules you can follow that will make it much more difficult for your browsing habits to be snooped or tracked. Tor, VPNs, browsers, and browser plugins are all tools that work together to try to give you the best results with the least bit of friction possible. Learning when to use which tools will ultimately fall onto you, but hopefully the choices should be simpler after reading this post.