Protect Your Privacy With Brave And DuckDuckGo Browsers

Authored by: Support.com Tech Pro Team

1. Protect Your Privacy With Brave And DuckDuckGo

Tech companies use various means to track and monitor your online activities. Tracking technologies such as cookies, fingerprinting, device identifiers, and location data are some of the tools that marketers employ to deliver targeted ads to you. These also allow companies such as Google and Facebook to keep tabs on everything you do on their networks, including their affiliate sites. But this massive surveillance often comes at the expense of users’ privacy, we’ve seen this with Equifax and most recently Cambridge Analytica data breach.

All these blatant violations of privacy have changed how users view information security, and more people than ever are pushing for new data security laws and privacy protections. Even some government agencies and tech executives are calling for regulation to protect consumers’ data and privacy. But as with most government initiatives, it takes time for changes to materialize.

The good news is that you don’t have to wait or be a tech-savvy, computer expert to make the changes you need to protect yourself against privacy and security threats. Here are two simple steps you can take right now to reduce the amount of data companies collect about you.

Switch To Brave Browser

Chrome offers users many powerful functions: it can be used with a range of extensions, supports almost all websites, and many organizations have made it their preferred web browser. On the downside, Chrome allows Google to gain more insight into how you use the web.

Remember that Google already has a lot of data about you. Whether it’s through Gmail, YouTube or Search, Google knows too much already. Chrome makes the data that Google collects even more valuable to advertisers; there’s no reason to give any organization unfettered access to your digital life.

The reason most people object to using any browser other than Chrome is because of the benefits highlighted above. However, with the recent advances in browser technology, things are starting to change. Web browser such as Brave not only offers a better user interface, it’s faster and more secure.

Brave’s features are similar to those of Chrome, but with more sophisticated privacy protections. Also, transitioning to Brave from Chrome is quite easy because it works with almost every Chrome extension and theme. This is owing to the fact that Brave is built with Chromium, an open-source browser project similar to Chrome.

But the biggest reason to switch to Brave is that it’s built with privacy as the top priority. You’ll have to install several extensions to beef up your security while using other chromium-based browsers such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Opera. Brave has most of the things you need to protect your privacy.

Brave also comes with fingerprinting support built-in to protect users from being tracked by data companies and malicious third parties looking to exploit vulnerabilities in computer systems. By default, Brave blocks all ads and installation of cookies, which prevents websites from monitoring what you do online.

One of the most prominent features of Brave is the private browsing mode. Yes, most web browsers have private mode and they go by many different names. For example, in Chrome it’s known as Incognito while Internet Explorer calls it InPrivate Browsing.

However, these standard private modes do not prevent your ISP from seeing what you do and where you’ve been online nor do they stop data firm such as Google from collecting data about your web visits.

Brave offers a more robust and secure private browsing mode. When you turn on the private mode in Brave, it automatically links to a tor server, an open-source software that routes internet traffic through multiple servers across the globe, which it makes extremely difficult for ISPs and websites to keep tabs on users’ browsing activities.

Normally, you would need to download a tor browser to access its full functionality. However, with Brave, you don’t need a separate tor browser because Brave comes with a built-in privacy mode that utilizes tor to give users maximum privacy protections. This separates Brave’s privacy mode from other browsers’ privacy modes.

DuckDuckGo

One of the ways that Google collects data about its users is via Search. Google controls more than 80 percent of search market; its search results are more accurate than most of the search engines out there. But that is changing, thanks to a privacy-focused organization like DuckDuckGo and many other formidable search platforms.

Many who have made the switch to DuckDuckGo have not looked back since. This is due to the fact that DuckDuckGo’s search technology and algorithms have gotten more sophisticated over the years.

Researchers who experimented with Google Search and DuckDuckGo found that both search engines deliver almost the same search results, and in some cases the results are identical. But what set DuckDuckGo apart is its privacy-first approach. The platform keeps all searches private and doesn’t remember search terms.

Whenever you search for something, DuckDuckGo treats it like it’s the first time. There won’t be highlighted links indicating the web pages you’ve visited before. The search engine doesn’t store personal data or search histories and doesn’t follow users around the web to deliver targeted ads. That’s why privacy-conscious users are switching to DuckDuckGo, and so should you if you don’t want to be tracked. It takes just a few seconds to switch from Google to DuckDuckGo, making it the quickest and easiest step you can take to significantly reduce privacy risks.