Letter: Take steps to protect your privacy online – Oroville Mercury Register

I fully agree with your editorial on the GOP Congress (including Doug LaMalfa) selling out our online privacy to internet service providers. At first, I thought I would write this letter expressing my despair over the loss of privacy and what that means in a free society. Instead, I wish to share things we can do to protect ourselves and our privacy.

Use Duckduckgo or Startpage as your only search engines. They (unlike all others) do not keep a record of your search words or track you.

One can use VPN (virtual private network) to hide ones IP address. The only problem is they are not free and there is still a need to trust the company that is providing it to not sell ones information. By far the best solution at the moment is using the Tor browser. First developed by the U.S. Navy, Tor is open source, which means its legally free to download and use by all. Its used by our government, law enforcement, journalists and citizens in countries where the internet is censored. Tor is always being improved and updated by volunteers. There is a version for all internet devices. Read about it here: http://www.torproject.org.

I use it everyday. My ISP knows that one of their customers is on the Tor browser. They dont know which one or what Im doing online. I must admit, I get a little joy each time I use it.

Richard J. Robinson, Chico

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Letter: Take steps to protect your privacy online - Oroville Mercury Register