Hello everyone, here I am with my first blog.
To begin with, here’s a quick fact:
According to many studies and surveys, a human spends over 6 hours approximately over the internet in 1 day.
We have knowingly or unknowingly indulged ourselves on our cell phones and laptops. We are sometimes unaware of the measures one must take to be safe on the internet as well as cut down the screen time we maintain.
I am a student currently and I have read some blogs relating to security in the past. The gist of all the blogs I read and the real practices that even I follow will be mentioned here in easily understandable language which I guarantee will be worth your time reading.
- One primary reason we can’t get over from our phones is that we receive timely notifications from unnecessary apps that we don’t even care about. So, I would recommend uninstalling all the most unused apps from your phone. Also, the genuine apps that are helpful for you, I would say that turning off notifications would prevent you from getting distracted.
- Realize that your eyes are very important to you! So, the people having glasses make sure you have up to date lenses. Also, an anti-glare screen is a must(mostly comes built-in nowadays in laptops). The 20–20 rule which I follow is relaxing my eyes after every 20 minutes of screen time. One personal habit which I follow is to get up from my chair and have water. This way my eyes get rest and the water requirement is also fulfilled!
- Think twice before you give permissions to the apps they request for, be it Camera access, microphone access or contacts access. Analyze which app needs which permissions. For example, a Todo App does not require any permission as such, so straight away deny the permissions to it the first time it asks you. One such Todo App which I use is Colornote.
- Emails & Phone numbers: Generally every website wants to gather your email or phone number when you land over their home page. So, do not give away your crucial information anywhere on the internet. I would also like to suggest a website that gives you temporary emails for 10 minutes which you can use to surpass OTP verification. One such website is https://10minutemail.com/. Even I used this hashed email to run my Spotify account for 3 months now!
- Use alternate search engines like Qwant(https://www.qwant.com/), Duck Duck Go(https://duckduckgo.com/) rather than Google. These alternate Search Engines have stricter data privacy regulations and are way safer than Google.
- Have you also wasted time on YouTube falling in the trap of recommendations? Then try to search the content you are looking for on YouTube, you may also turn off recommendations in your settings.
7. VPN, How can I miss this, this is the supreme power on the internet. VPN is a virtual private network in which your IP is relocated to a different server and your location cannot be tracked based on the internet connection you have. Your ISP will know that you are using a VPN but he/she cannot have a look at your internet activity. This way it can be difficult to be tracked, which is also used by many journalists nowadays to report the reality of the news. The most recommended VPN is NordVPN. I am saying this particular VPN in particular because it is based in Panama, where there are strong and efficient data privacy laws. Using free VPN’s cannot be regarded as a safety measure as we cannot say how those companies process our data.
8. HTTPS everywhere extension : Popular Browsers like Chrome, Firefox provide facility to force HTTPS on websites that you visit.Link is https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/https-everywhere/gcbommkclmclpchllfjekcdonpmejbdp?hl=en. This little step in itself prevents you from landing over malicious website URLs.
9. Passwords: Never use a similar pattern of passwords on different applications. But as a human mind is limited to remembering information, we can use apps like LastPass to manage our passwords. In such apps, you need a master password to enter the app wherein you can access all your passwords.
10. Spend time on your physical fitness. It may be delightful to watch web series till late at night but, the harsh truth is that it adversely affects our health. Do maintain a sleep time of 6–8 hours. It is very crucial to maintain a healthy work-life balance to be up to the mark.
“To keep the body in good health is a duty…otherwise we shall not be able to keep the mind strong and clear.” — Buddha
I hope you enjoyed reading this blog and got some real insights on internet security. Reviews are appreciated. Thank you for your time!
