4 Ways to Stay Anonymous & Hide Your Identity Online

Hide Your Identity Online


Even if you aren’t doing anything illegal, your privacy is important and, at times, calls for hiding your identity online.

It’s a bit difficult to do this on the internet, since everything is recorded in cookies and your IP address when you browse, in fact companies like Facebook and Google openly admit to tracking what you do online so they can market to you. So what can you do?

1. Sign out of social media and delete cookies

The technically savvy will say this won’t work, since your IP address is still the same and companies can track you. But, it’s still a small level of protection, as Facebook won’t be able to track who is reading articles via their Like buttons, and Google won’t be able to identify you either.

Also, ISPs do in fact change your IP sometimes, which will stifle companies from tracking you. Be careful though, cookies do get set in your browser to track you. If you want to be safe with this method, disable cookies on your browser.

2. Proxies

This is the second level of protection. Proxies are free services, mostly just a random server, that you go to and enter the URL you want to visit. Then they show you the page via their server, usually along with their own adverts to make money.

This is the favourite of schoolkids who want to access Facebook at school when its banned, they can easily load it up via a proxy. The downside is they are usually very slow. To find a proxy, try a large site like Proxy.org.

3. TOR

TOR is a piece of software that let’s you hide your IP address. What happens is anyone can sign up as a node, and then people can browse the internet via your server or machine. These nodes act as proxies.

The whole service is free, although when we tested it, it was a bit slow.

4. VPNs

VPNs are the ultimate solution to hiding your identity. They are professional servers, maintained in many countries, and have professionally programmed software that routes all your traffic via these servers.

Some of these services log what you are doing, but some even offer to not log anything that you do! So you are 100% hidden from the world via their servers. There are hundreds of VPNs, to find a decent one check out BestVPN.com.

Conclusion

Just to summarise, you get what you pay for. If you want to browse anonymously for free, you need to put some work into it yourself, and it probably isn’t going to be quick — you will be browsing slowly.

If you are willing to spend $5-$10 per month, you can buy services that will hide your identity online and offer quick internet at the same time. The choice is yours!

How do you hide your identity online? Share your tips below!

Image by FreeDigitalPhotos.net.


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Discussion

  1. Adam - HireMeHigherEd on the 20th March

    It seems like a whole lot of trouble to go through to hide your identity, but then again, I suppose it is worth it to be out from the clutches of Big G, and Facebook.

  2. Jason @ Valley Oregon Homes on the 21st March

    We’ve been using proxie servers for years. But as of late many merchant processors wont take payments from us because of it. Currently, like you said, we are looking into VPN’s but to set up a custom solution like this takes time. What are you using?

  3. Rudd on the 24th March

    You won’t need to do all those stuff if you know what you’re doing and don’t do illegal stuff. However, I highly recommend VPN when online in public network. You don’t want someone to sniff your password, do you? 🙂

  4. jakey on the 21st May

    I often use disposable email to sign up for stuff on the web. Like http://mailsac.com or Mailnesia.

  5. nada on the 30th June

    I downloaded this vpn service and its very good for me , no annoying ads , were made to any of my browser settings. It was a totally clean download for me.

    http://www.dubaivpn.com/Iwasel.php

  6. Lorrie Gonzalez on the 30th October

    Great article I have been a VPN user too. I am using Cyberghost and it’s super great. I’m confident to surf the internet now and do online shopping! But if you really wanna conceal your identity, don’t do all your personal stuff over the internet.

  7. Fatima Clark on the 6th November

    Use VPN if you want to hide your identity. It encrypts all your data and as a result, you won’t be tracked https://www.bestvpnservicemag.com/#anonymous-surfing

  8. Joseph on the 16th August

    I would like to share another great vpn comparison provider. If you need to use for your country you can use it too. Don’t miss the chance. Please visit the link http://www.vpncomparison.org/country/usa/

  9. Terry on the 12th October

    Thanks for these tips. I use TOR and https://proxylion.com/ and then delete cookies.

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