Digital privacy: How you can be anonymous

Regardless of whether or not you have anything to hide, the past few months have been troubling for those concerned with their privacy. We've learnt that the reach of government surveillance is far greater than people had imagined. The whole thing can seem a little bit hopeless, but there are some concrete steps you can take to make your browsing experience safer and safeguard your digital privacy.

Google DuckDuckGo
Google collects and stores information on all your searches linking them to your Google account. For many, a glance at search history can be particularly revealing. Worse, Google will share this information with law enforcement, anybody with a subpoena and (apparently) just about anybody at the NSA. DuckDuckGo is a search engine that does not store information, so there's nothing to share.

Use Tor, not Chrome
Chrome may be shiny, but you know what they say about all that glitters. Chrome collects and delivers to websites and advertisers veritable treasure troves of data about your surfing habits and other things you may prefer to keep private. Tor Browser randomises and redirects page requests multiple times in order to thwart censorship and make it harder to track you. The interesting thing about Tor is that while it doesn't make tracking impossible, it makes all data look similar, which makes looking for specific pieces of data about as hard as finding a needle in a haystack. The concept is safety in numbers, as the more anonymous users join the Tor network, the more it grows in effectiveness.

Use a proxy
If you can't quit Chrome, use a proxy. Proxies route web traffic through servers worldwide, making it difficult to pinpoint your location. The easiest way to install a proxy is via a free browser extension in Chrome such as Hola Better Internet or ZenMate. Keep in mind though that proxies do not encrypt data. So while they're great to get around content region locks, you definitely don't want to make any bank transactions while they're enabled. Proxies are faster than VPNs because they're unencrypted and focus on website traffic alone, leaving other programs unaffected.

Sign up for a VPN
If you are truly concerned about privacy and security, you ought to use a VPN to access the internet. VPN services usually cost money, but are one of the most secure ways to use the internet without leaving a trail. ISPs monitor traffic and frequently throttle speeds, particularly if you're a fan of programmes like Bittorrent or file-sharing applications. Websites and applications like iTunes and Spotify will often check for your location before allowing you to proceed. VPNs allow you a way around that by creating a secure encrypted connection between your computer and a remote machine through which all traffic is routed. This has the effect of making your computer appear to be somewhere else. VPNs strip much of the information that would normally be available to those tracking you, not only making you safer overall, but also often circumventing region-based restrictions (yes, even iTunes), censorship and government surveillance.
Privacy is an elusive and transient concept. No sooner do we, as a society, think we know where the line is, a company like Facebook comes in and moves the goalpost. People share enormous amounts of information online, but it's important that everything we share is voluntary. In a world where everybody knows everything, it's perhaps what we choose to keep private that defines us.