How to Browse the Internet Anonymously

Summary

This video explains why incognito mode isn't enough to protect your online privacy and highlights the importance of tools like VPNs and the Tor browser. It discusses how advertisers and organizations track your online data, offering strategies for browsing anonymously, such as using VPNs, Tor, and the Tails operating system. Although these tools provide solid privacy protection, the video emphasizes that no method is perfect, especially with human habits involved. It ends by recommending Private Internet Access (PIA) as a reliable VPN service for enhanced privacy and security online.

Takeaways

• 🔒 Simply using incognito mode isn't enough to keep your data private online.
• 🕵️ Just because you're not doing anything illegal doesn't mean no one is after your personal data.
• 👀 Companies and political organizations use your browsing data to target ads and messages.
• 🛡️ Using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) encrypts your data and masks your location, making it harder for ISPs and advertisers to track you.
• 🌐 The Onion Router (Tor) provides extra privacy by sending your internet traffic through multiple layers of encryption.
• ⚠️ VPNs and Tor are not perfect; they can still leave traces, especially if you're being targeted by government agencies.
• 💻 Tails OS, a Linux-based system, is highly privacy-focused, running all internet traffic through Tor and forgetting all data once shut down.
• 🚫 While tools like VPNs, Tor, and Tails OS can significantly boost privacy, certain websites block these services (e.g., Expedia blocks Tor users).
• 🐢 Privacy tools can slow down your browsing experience due to added encryption layers, increasing latency.
• 🧠 No matter how secure your setup is, human habits can still compromise your privacy, making complete anonymity difficult.

Q & A

What is the main takeaway from the video?

Switching on incognito mode or private browsing is not enough to keep your data safe online.

Why is it important to stay private online even if you're not doing anything illegal?

Because companies and organizations collect your data to target you with ads and other content, and your personal information can still be vulnerable.

How does a VPN help protect your online privacy?

A VPN encrypts your data and sends it through a network of servers, making it harder for your ISP and other parties to track your online activities.

What are the limitations of using a VPN for privacy?

While a VPN secures your data, it doesn't prevent all tracking, and when your data leaves the VPN, it can still be traced. Also, VPNs may not fully protect you if a government agency is targeting you.

What is Tor and how does it provide anonymity?

Tor is an internet networking protocol that anonymizes data by encrypting it and sending it through multiple nodes, making it hard for anyone to trace your activity.

Why is Tor combined with a VPN recommended in the video?

Combining Tor with a VPN provides additional protection, masking the initial jump and offering more anonymity for most users, even though it may not be foolproof.

What is Tails OS and why is it considered highly secure?

Tails OS is a Linux-based operating system that forgets all data after the session ends, ensuring no trace of your online activities remains. It also routes all traffic through the Tor network.

What are some of the disadvantages of using private browsing tools like Tor and Tails?

Using tools like Tor and Tails can slow down your internet browsing, and some modern conveniences like shopping carts and saved logins don't work well with these privacy setups.

Why do advertisers want your browsing data?

Advertisers use your browsing data to serve targeted ads, which increases the likelihood that you will engage with their products or services.

How does the video demonstrate the difference between private and non-private browsing?

The video compares browsing experiences with a standard setup and a fully anonymized setup using Tails OS and Tor, showing how location and ads differ between the two.

Outlines

00:00

🔐 Why Incognito Mode Isn't Enough

The paragraph explains that simply using incognito mode or private browsing isn't sufficient for protecting your data online. Despite not engaging in illegal activities, your personal information is still at risk as various organizations want your browsing data for targeted advertising. The good news is that safeguarding your privacy is easier than you might think, and using a VPN is one of the essential strategies to maintain privacy.

05:01

🌐 How VPNs Work and Their Limitations

This paragraph discusses VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) and how they work. VPNs encrypt your data and route it through servers to mask your location and browsing activity. While VPNs are effective for basic privacy and circumventing firewalls, they don't offer complete protection. Once data leaves the VPN network, it can still be tracked, and VPNs may not be foolproof if you're targeted by government agencies.

10:01

🧅 The Onion Router (Tor) for Anonymity

The paragraph introduces the Onion Router, or Tor, as a tool for maintaining anonymity online. It explains how Tor encrypts traffic in layers, sending it through multiple nodes to obscure your online activity. While not perfect, Tor combined with a VPN provides a strong level of privacy protection. However, advanced threats like government surveillance can still track traffic at certain points.

🖥️ Tails OS: The Ultimate Privacy Solution

This paragraph describes Tails, a Linux-based operating system built around Tor for maximum privacy. Tails doesn't store any data, runs from RAM, and wipes all data upon shutdown, making it ideal for anonymous browsing. It’s portable and can be run on most computers via a USB port, making it a versatile solution for high-level privacy needs.

🔍 Privacy Settings for Your Browser

The paragraph covers key browser privacy configurations. It suggests disabling JavaScript, installing the Privacy Badger extension to block trackers, and using DuckDuckGo as a search engine to avoid being tracked by advertising networks. These steps are essential for enhancing privacy and preventing unwanted tracking online.

💻 Comparing Browsing Experiences: Tails vs. Windows

A side-by-side test of two machines, one running Windows and another running Tails with the Tor browser, is conducted to demonstrate how anonymous browsing differs. Tails successfully anonymized the user's location, but some sites, like Expedia, block access when using Tor. The comparison shows the benefits of using privacy tools but also highlights potential usability issues with certain websites.

📉 Downsides of Private Browsing

This paragraph explores the downsides of using Tails and the Tor browser, such as slow browsing speeds due to multiple encryption hops. It also points out the lack of features like saved shopping carts and auto-login, which are common on modern websites but don't work with extreme privacy setups. It emphasizes that no system is perfect, and user habits can still expose personal information.

📢 Conclusion and PIA VPN Promotion

The final paragraph wraps up the discussion, stating that while private browsing has limitations, the methods outlined can obscure your data from most advertisers and casual trackers. It then transitions into a promotion for Private Internet Access (PIA), a VPN provider, explaining its features and benefits, such as supporting multiple devices, leak protection, and the kill switch feature.

Keywords

💡Incognito Mode

Incognito mode is a browser setting that prevents browsing history from being saved on the user's device. However, the video emphasizes that while it may hide local history, it is not sufficient for protecting data online from external entities such as advertisers or organizations tracking users.

💡VPN (Virtual Private Network)

A VPN encrypts a user's internet data and routes it through remote servers to mask their IP address. The video highlights that using a VPN like 'Private Internet Access' helps users anonymize their activity by making it appear as though data is coming from a different location, providing an essential layer of privacy online.

💡Encryption

Encryption is the process of encoding data to prevent unauthorized access. The video discusses how VPNs use encryption to protect the user's internet traffic before sending it through a network of servers, ensuring that their activity is hidden from prying eyes, such as ISPs and advertisers.

💡Tor (The Onion Router)

Tor is a privacy-focused browser that routes internet traffic through multiple layers of encryption and nodes, making it extremely difficult for anyone to trace a user’s online activity. The video mentions that Tor is integrated into the Tails operating system and can help anonymize users even further, especially for those with heightened privacy concerns.

💡Tails OS

Tails OS is a privacy-focused operating system that runs entirely from a computer’s RAM and erases all traces of the user's activity after shutdown. The video describes it as a powerful tool for complete anonymity, as it directs all internet traffic through the Tor network and forgets all data after the system is powered off.

💡Advertisers

Advertisers collect user data, often through tracking methods, to target them with personalized ads. The video points out that a major reason for protecting one's privacy online is to prevent advertisers from tracking and using personal data to influence behavior through targeted ads.

💡Data Tracking

Data tracking refers to the collection and analysis of a user’s online behavior, including websites visited, clicks, and searches. The video highlights how organizations, including advertisers and political entities, use data tracking to better target their audiences, often compromising user privacy in the process.

💡Privacy Badger

Privacy Badger is a browser extension mentioned in the video that blocks online trackers and ads. It is suggested as part of a multi-layered strategy to ensure privacy while browsing by preventing websites from tracking users across the internet.

💡DNS Leak Protection

DNS Leak Protection is a feature of VPNs that prevents DNS requests (which translate domain names into IP addresses) from being exposed outside the VPN, thus safeguarding user privacy. The video mentions this feature as part of the Private Internet Access VPN, which ensures that no traffic leaks from the encrypted VPN tunnel.

💡Kill Switch

A kill switch is a feature that automatically blocks all internet traffic if the VPN connection drops unexpectedly. In the video, it is highlighted as part of the Private Internet Access VPN’s suite of security features, ensuring that no unencrypted data is exposed in case the VPN disconnects.

Highlights

Switching to incognito mode or private browsing is not enough to keep your data safe online.

Even if you're not doing anything illegal, your personal information can still be valuable to companies and political organizations.

Companies use online behavior data to serve targeted ads and maintain user engagement.

Staying private online is less difficult than it seems, and simple strategies like using a VPN can help.

A VPN (Virtual Private Network) encrypts your data and routes it through various servers to mask your identity and location.

While VPNs are useful for securing data, they have limitations when the traffic exits the VPN network, making full anonymity challenging.

Tor (The Onion Router) browser provides anonymity by relaying traffic through multiple encrypted layers and nodes, masking your identity further.

Tor has its limitations, especially during the initial connection before reaching the Tor network, and is vulnerable until fully connected.

Combining a VPN with Tor can offer more security, but government surveillance can still track predictable exit points from VPN networks.

The Tails operating system runs all internet traffic through the Tor network, and it is designed to forget everything once the system is shut down.

Tails offers a portable and secure browsing experience since the entire OS runs off the computer's RAM, erasing data after shutdown.

Tor browser looks similar to Firefox because it's based on it, making the user interface familiar for easy configuration.

For enhanced privacy, disable JavaScript, use Privacy Badger to block trackers, and set DuckDuckGo as the default search engine.

While private browsing can block ads and trackers, it can also slow down browsing and disable conveniences like shopping cart memory.

No privacy solution is bulletproof, and the weakest link in security is often the user, who may unintentionally reveal their habits.

Transcripts

let's open with the most important thing

to take away from this video simply

switching on incognito mode or private

browsing is not enough to keep your data

safe online

also

just because you aren't doing anything

illegal doesn't mean that no one is

after your personal information and that

there's no benefit to staying private

thing is guys these days pretty much

everyone and their dog is out to get

your browsing data and that's not

tinfoil hat paranoid delusional stuff

the main reason is that companies and

other organizations like political

parties want your eyeballs glued to

their message and the data that they get

from your behavior online helps by

giving them an advantage when they serve

up those juicy ads everywhere that you

frequent the good news is that staying

private online is actually less

difficult than you might think and

pretty much anyone can do it so let's go

through some easy strategies starting

with one of our favorites using a vpn

like private internet access

for those of you new to vpns or virtual

private networks they take in your data

encrypt it then send it through their

network of servers before forwarding it

to the destination country of choice

when the vpn sends your data out into

the world towards the intended

destination it decrypts the data and

makes it look like the data originated

from that exit point rather than your

computer so whether you're torrenting or

looking up content that might generate

embarrassing ads in your browser the

next time someone sits down at your

computer we consider a vpn an essential

part of staying safe online

with that said while a vpn does secure

your data in some ways making it so your

isp can't tell what you're doing and

allowing you to circumvent most firewall

blocks when your information leaves the

vpn network it's all still there and can

be used to track you so a vpn is just

one of the tools in our belt

now let's talk about the onion router or

tor as some of you know it we've

actually covered tor before but the

summary version goes a little something

like this the onion router isn't a

physical router like you'd think of

plugging in in your home rather it's an

internet networking protocol that's

integrated into the tor web browser and

it's designed to anonymize the data

relayed across it

so it keeps your online activity

anonymous by encasing your traffic in

multiple layers of encryption then

sending it through a number of nodes

that peel back those layers one at a

time

this makes it difficult if not

impossible for snoops to see your

webmail search history and other online

activity

now tor is also imperfect and leaves us

vulnerable until our traffic reaches its

network

that's why we're using our pia vpn to

mask that initial jump

now thing is using a vpn can actually

lead to issues if you are specifically

being hunted by some government agency

because your traffic will have a

predictable exit point but for most

people whose goal is to thwart more

casual surveillance and advertisers this

vulnerability isn't that important

now incognito mode which by the way

isn't useless plus a vpn and tor is

pretty good and probably enough for most

people but since we're going for the

ultimate private setup we're going to

take things a step further with our

secret weapon

the

hey

there it is

super secure password the linux based

tails is the operating system equivalent

of your weird uncle after too many

drinks it's designed to forget

everything it ever heard or saw the

entire os is built around the tor

protocol and runs all internet traffic

through the tor network not just your

browser traffic one of the other key

benefits of tails is that the os

essentially runs off of your computer's

ram so once you turn off the system poof

any data that was lingering on it is

gone and there's nothing to match your

identity to the last browsing session

another advantage of this solution is

that you can take it with you and launch

it on nearly any computer with a usb

port

so then now we are ready to browse the

web

anonymously

almost the first thing you'll probably

notice about the tor browser is how

similar it looks to firefox and that's

not by accident it's because it is

firefox just set up to use the tor

protocol and that's nice because it

makes configuring all these little

tweaks pretty familiar and

straightforward so in no particular

order regardless of our browser choice

we want to make sure that javascript

can't run we want to install the privacy

badger extension to stop trackers and

provide ad blocking and we want to set

our default search engine to duckduckgo

for what i hope would be fairly obvious

reasons

so then

now

we are fully ready to both browse the

web and stick it to the man

at the same time let's do a few tests

here to see what that looks like so

we've got two machines for our side by

side test a completely vanilla one

running windows and using google and

then our tails linux one with the tor

browser now something to note is that

we're not actually using a vpn on either

of these machines because here we're

trying to get a representation of the

worst case scenario and here

pia actually doesn't recommend using

their vpn from within tails although

they do have a free proxy included with

your account which they do say could be

a good idea depending on what it is

you're trying to achieve so let's go

ahead and search for expedia

um

okay first hit is

expedia.com

this one expedia.ca

so immediately our location has been

anonymized and also

expedia blocked us from even accessing

their site

that's cute

did we know that was gonna happen no i

didn't expect him to block tour expedia

blocks tor

let's try a different

provider we can't tell if you're a human

i'm human expedia dot co dot uk let me

through it's like pretty sure i'm a bot

hey taking it sweet time three freaking

catches

no we're good all right let's find a

freaking flight here new york departing

tomorrow

okay

let's do a quick search midirch

now we haven't actually been researching

flights and hotels so there may not be

much benefit in terms of pricing to

anonymizing any of this but

there's only one way to find out all

right so we're looking at 699

canadian round trip

and 304

pounds

let's do a quick conversion there

556.

i just saved 145 dollars

this is the same damn flight

and it's over hundred dollars cheaper

includes taxes and fees and then same in

canada too including taxes and fees yep

yep yep apples to apples you have you

heard it here first expedia hates

canadians now let's do another fun

little test let's go to whatismyip.com

that is in fact r.i.p and over here my

public ip is some nonsense i've never

seen or heard of before and i'm

apparently based in

basel

bsch where the devil is that

switzerland now let's do another fun

little test let's go on a popular

shopping website like say newegg.com

now let's shop for let's say video cards

maybe an

phantom radeon7 uh what's a site with

really really obnoxious ads

ah what's that one based in australia

that's like super obnoxious tweektown

tweak town

that's it

thanks luke

all right and let's have a look at what

kind of ads are lurking for us

on the page

what do we have here

vancouver to london vancouver to new

delhi vancouver to lima and vancouver to

san salvador

shockingly they didn't manage to come up

with any graphics cards ads which was

sort of what i was going for here but i

think we've made our point

as for this well it looks like they're

not getting any ad revenue from us which

of course we feel pretty badly about as

an ad supported enterprise ourselves

but at the very least we are not being

tracked across the internet which is the

only reason that we enabled the ad

blocking on this particular one in the

first place you can of course anonymize

your browsing significantly without

blocking ads altogether

just saying

so for fun we're going to disable both

privacy badger and u-block origin

and reload this page

so there's our ads but as you can see

they are completely

irrelevant

so we've got some scarlet audio

interfaces in whatever language this is

and add for the stream deck accel that's

in english at least

an ad for corsair's hydrox series liquid

cooling

so there you go

so that was a pretty compelling

demonstration of the benefits of private

browsing but

it has some clear disadvantages as well

now this machine on the right is

actually faster than the one on the left

but you guys might have noticed that

browsing from within tails using the tor

browser was slow as hell

that's because the more hops you go

through the more latency you're adding

to the connection

also some of the creature comforts that

we've gotten used to on the modern web

things like shopping carts that remember

all the things that you added to them or

websites that remember that you logged

into them so you don't have to enter

your password every time

that stuff

ain't gonna work over here

also something to bear in mind guys is

that no matter what you do it is going

to be imperfect

this was a fairly basic guide and

privacy browsing is a rabbit hole and a

half furthermore even on a properly set

up machine while you're browsing and

searching and almost all of your

internet usage might be basically

invisible

nothing is bulletproof because the

weakest point in the entire chain exists

between the keyboard and the chair

you and i are human and we are nothing

if not creatures of habit and if someone

is trying to find you your habits are

likely to end up being the thing that

gives you away with all of that said

though for the vast majority of use

cases following either of the methods

that we laid out here should obscure

your data footprint enough to make it

nearly useless for advertisers and other

parties speaking of advertisers this

video is brought to you by pia private

internet

private internet access supports a

variety of vpn protocols and types of

encryption and authentication allowing

you to dial in the level of privacy that

you need they've got apps for windows

mac os android linux and google chrome

and you can connect up to five devices

at once using a single account their

apps include dns leak protection and

ipv6 leak protection as well as their

internet kill switch feature which

blocks all traffic if the vpn becomes

disconnected unexpectedly so check it

out today at lmg dot gg slash pia linus

two we're gonna have that linked down

below

so thanks for watching guys if this

video sucked you know what to do but if

it was awesome hit like get subscribed

or maybe consider checking out where to

buy the stuff we featured at the video

description link below also down there

is our merch store it has cool shirts

like this one

join our community forum it looks like

that

or like that if you're in the tor

browser

well