Privacy is like an underwear, you don't want to just show it to anyone. They either have to get permission, or earn your trust.

I just made that ^ up. So in order to protect my underwear, errmm, privacy, I have these online habits below. Yes, this is very opinionated and I don't care, go home.

Add-ons

Cookies and trackers are often generated when we click an ad. While not all trackers/cookies are bad, some website inject those to get our browsing data and use it for their products or worse, sell it, without our consent. So it's really important to be mindful of what we browse on the internet.

Facebook Container

Hate seeing Facebook ads about the product you browsed recently? This extension will prevent that and isolate your Facebook session while browsing other websites.

uBlock Origin

This is a content blocker, not an ad blocker. It "blocks" ads too! But it is not an ad blocker okay? I have been using uBlock Origin for many years because I find it more resource friendly and it serves its purpose for me. There are other alternatives out there but I won't link it because I am biased, by the way it is open source. heh.

Universal Bypass

You know those URL that when you click, it will redirect you to the land of God knows where to click because there are multiple "continue" or "next" button, moreover you have to wait for 5-10 seconds! You have now arrived at the garden of malwares! If you misclick, it goes to another dodgy website that will open a popup that claims to be better than your $100 anti-virus and says your computer has a virus. That was a long introduction, phew! Universal Bypass will try to skip those URL and give you a clean page what will redirect to the real page that you're trying to access.

Firefox Multi-Account Containers

I am not actually using this since I don't keep too many tabs and sessions but If you're someone who has to open multiple tabs in multiple windows, you might want to organize them with Firefox Multi-Account Containers. Of course, you have to use Firefox (I am biased).

The extension let's you create sessions that are color-coded and store it in a so-called "container". So for example, you have a "work" container and a "personal-browsing" or "whatever" container; you logged in to an email account to "work" container, the other containers won't know that you are logged in to an email account because they're different sessions. It's like opening different accounts to multiple browsers, but here, you're only using Firefox (because it's the best browser). Actually, just try! It's hard to explain, please. Or go to this link, where our fellow Mozillians discuss it in-depth.

Emails

Our email accounts are like the main gate to our privacy online, so don't ever give the key to anyone. Phishing mails are really common but it can be avoided easily. How do I do it? I ignore most of the messages! HAHA jk.

  1. Two-factor authentication baby! Yes, enable it!
  2. Always check the  from, mailed-by, security block from the email details.
  3. Check the URL before clicking a link in the email. You can see it if you hover the cursor over the link, usually it will appear at the bottom of your browser. If the text is too small for you, right click the link and use "Copy Link" option and paste it somewhere. Just make sure it's not a gibberish asd123.com  or something.
  4. I don't think it's bad to have multiple email accounts. I use alternative emails to sites that I can ignore email notifications. For example, social media accounts, since notifications can come via push notification.
  5. I have trust issues so I generally ignore messages, unless it is important or from a close friend. When I see links sent to me without any followup message it is automatically ignored. This also applies in social media messages.

Labels and tags are also quite useful for email. It filters the important messages and the ones you can ignore. When reading emails, I do it in the following order; Important -> Starred -> Updates. Sometimes, I glance over through the social network requests and if I'm really bored, spams.

Browsing

  • By using Firefox, my privacy already has one layer of protection through its Enhanced Tracking Protection.
  • As much as possible, I try not connect to a public wi-fi, unless it's real emergency, like I'm lost at SM Megamall or Mall of Asia and I don't have mobile data (It actually happened, except I had mobile data hehe).
  • Always make sure to browse sites securely (HTTPS).
  • If  I am on a website that asks to disable my ad blocker (content blocker or whatever), then it "could" be a sign that I don't want to be in that site, else, I am very careful of what to click or fill-up.
  • Whenever I search something and the result gives me dodgy urls, I open it in a private window so no cache or cookies gets saved.
  • For online banking, I mostly use their mobile apps, if I have to access their website, I make sure to check their SSL certificate which you can see if you click the lock beside the address bar. Online banking sites will have their own SSL certificate name.
Not sponsored by Unionbank but their online banking is one of the best!

Social Networking Service (SNS) and Apps

  • Social media settings also have privacy section, please play with it, yes it's a toy. I mean I am responsible to what I post online so I should know who can view it, and comment on it, and play on it (huh?).
  • When I sign in or sign up using my social media account to another site, I check the data they access from my SNS (social media is so long jeez).
  • Same thing with android apps. Not sure about iOS apps, but whenever I install an android app, I also check the permissions it requires. You can also re-examine the permissions of apps already installed.

Some of the things mentioned here might be common knowledge, but not for everyone.

Stop thinking that privacy is only for the famous, evil can make bad out of anything. Any bad person can exploit anyone's privacy for their gain regardless of popularity. They can use your data to deceive the people around you.

So to add an extra layer to your privacy protection, I encourage you to share what you know to the people around you, especially elders. Asking them to ignore messages from an overseas worker using a local number or writing comments with their full name and address (including yours) to a facebook raffle of someone without a checkmark next to their name might go a long way. Hehe.

P.S.

Protect your underwear.