last update: Sept. 06, 2025
A question I get asked regularly is “How do I protect myself when surfing?”
Here’s how I do it. There are always alternative methods and setups. Nothing is 100% secure if it is online. Absolutely no promises. These steps will protect you from most tracking, but remember – anyone with enough skill/time/resources can see everything you do online. The only way to avoid that is to not be looked for by someone with the time/skill/resources.
Don’t use Windows. Sorry, but it’s true. When your operating system tells you it’s spying on you, believe them. Linux is also much easier to use than everyone thinks.
Use a VPN. This is essential if you are connecting to any wifi network other than your home network, but I use one at home as well. I can recommend and I make a referral from AirVPN. Contrary to a lot of advertising a VPN does not protect you from much, but it does make tracking more difficult and allows you to get around local restrictions.
How to easily create relatively secure passwords has it’s own page. Find it here: Passwords. This advice is, however, quickly becoming obsolete as the internet moves to passkeys. Passkeys are going to require a password manager to deal with and I highly recommend Proton Pass.
First of all I use 2 browsers – Vivaldi and Chrome. And I make sure they’re up to date. I use Chrome for all my “safe” surfing. Banking. Revenue Canada. Google. Anywhere that I want cookies and scripts and passwords and Java on all the time. People I am ok knowing who I am, and where I’m going. For all other surfing I use Vivaldi. I set Vivaldi’s preferences so that it is set to delete everything on exit. And then I install the following addons:
Privacy Badger [link]
From the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Essential privacy tool. Defaults.
Random User Agent [link]
Defaults. Helps defend against “fingerprinting”, a favourite method of tracking by data brokers and advertisers.
Proton Pass [link]
Defaults. Helps create and store passwords, login credentials and passkeys.
