Protecting your privacy online

It is very important that we safeguard our information when ever we go online. Unlike in real life when we go online we leave behind a trail of information. Privacy is very important and with more and more of us going online it is very important that we exercise caution and try and keep our privacy. The greatest threat to your privacy is yourself as most of us unwittingly give away our details . The trade in our details has become big business as companies try and keep more and more data on us. When we visit a website most websites have cookies which are iinstalled onto our computer this then tracks our movements online how much time we spend on a website as well as what we buy at times to fight back simply disable automatic cookies on your browser although this will cause some websites not to display propely it will give you the power to allow somesites to track you or not.

We are used to protecting our credit cards as well as other details we consider important but we are at the same time usually more than willing to provide other forms of personal data . We are very easily persuaded to part with our details be it in return for some information or a download . When a site requires you to fill in a form required to access its data we have to be very sceptic of such and if the information is not that important it probably a good idea to walk away well in this case click away.

The promise of a little something should not be enough to part with a large chunk of our privacy take gmail for example a free email account trades loads of personal data and they goi on to create programs that will monitor your incoming as well as outgoing mail then target their advertising accordingly. This is by far tyhe moist appollling.

Your computer can be an enermy with in if not configured correctly . A firewall is a must have if you are going to go online. Turn some fitures which are not necessary can go a long way autocomplete although very convinient can leave some information vulnerable.Running a regular antispyware and malware get rid of programs that spy on you will help protect your privacy by a long way.It should be noted that some rouge companies macurading as security companies accually install spyware instead of scanning your hard disc for spyware so get your security software from reputable sources.

Opening email attachments from sources we doi not knoiw can lead our computers and ultimately our privacy at risk so scannning attachments is a good idea and only downloading material from trusted sources.