Have you ever felt like the Internet knows too much about your preferences and interests? If so, you’ve just experienced targeted advertising. In this practice, websites use web trackers to collect your online data and behavior, storing them as cookies and then sharing that data with third-party advertising networks. These networks analyze the data to serve you more personalized or “targeted” ads. What’s more, tracking your online activity can be done even without you knowing!
While targeted advertising can help discover more products that align with your interests, it may raise privacy concerns. If you wish to enhance your online privacy and protect your digital footprint, try these three online privacy tools. To ensure an uninterrupted and secure browsing experience, pair these tools with the fastest Internet connection in the Philippines — PLDT Home!
Tracker Blockers
From Ghostery
As the name suggests, tracker blockers are browser plugins or apps designed to block specific web trackers of your choosing from collecting your online activity data, safeguarding your privacy from certain websites. Ghostery is a well-known option offering ad blocking and private web searching, available on both desktop and mobile devices. However, some users have raised privacy concerns about Ghostery's data practices. For a more cautious approach, consider browser plugins like Privacy Badger or uBlock Origin as alternative browser plugins that effectively protect your data and maintain your online privacy.
Tor Browsers
From Avast
Short for “The Onion Router”, Tor Browsers enable anonymous web browsing by connecting you to the Internet through multiple layers (similar to an onion) of Tor servers or nodes. This encryption process ensures that your data remains secure and prevents web trackers from linking your activity to your IP address, providing a truly anonymous online experience. Unlike private tabs or "Incognito" mode, which only temporarily pause your web history, Tor Browsers offer a comprehensive solution to maintain your privacy.
How it works is essentially similar to Virtual Private Networks (VPN). Both provide encryption and rerouting to different networks, but the main difference is that the servers used by Tor browsers are random, making it extremely difficult to track. Unlike VPNs with permanent servers that allow the VPN provider to track and collect your online data and behavior. The downside of Tor is that it may take websites longer to load due to the length of travel between servers, and you won’t get other features that come with most VPNs. So if you want to try completely anonymous browsing, you can download the original Tor Browser or try Brave Browser, which can open a private window that uses Tor.
10 Minute Mail
Want to check out a website, but it only allows access when you’ve signed up via email? If you don’t want to risk being spammed due to sharing your email for that website, use a temporary email address. Temp Mail creates a temporary email for you that is active only for 10 minutes, allowing you to sign-up without being linked to your actual email. Even better, the account created from that email will still exist even after the 10 minutes are up.
Maximize your private browsing with PLDT Home Fiber Plus Plans!
Now that you can surf the web privately, don’t surf it slowly! Get PLDT Home– the fastest Internet connection in the Philippines as awarded by Ookla, and experience speeds starting at 400 Mbps! Make the most of your time online with PLDT Home Fiber Plus Plans!