Initially I was writing about how at the beginning of each year, I go through my accounts and delete my online presence for services I no longer use. But that got me thinking about the different ways I try to keep my privacy online, which might be a fun thing to jot down.
Email Accounts
First things first, I have 4 main email accounts:
- Personal use that I give to friends and family.
- One that I use with important accounts that I regularly use or those have to ties to my identity (e.g. banking, insurance, utilities).
- Professional one that I only put on my resume.
- A catch-all for disposable online accounts (e.g. stores).
All four accounts have unique and strong, randomly generated passwords with multi-factor authentication enabled (MFA through auth app, not through SMS).
For random websites, I use email masking for each site (see Email Masking section).
Password Manager
I use 1Password and have been very happy with it (previously used KeePass). What I really like about it is how easy it is to organize and tag different records. You can also have multiple "vaults". I have a personal one, a family one that I share with my family, one for traveling, and one for work credentials.
It also allows you to store other things, such as MFA codes.
Other Options: Bitwarden
Email Masking
I really like email masking feature and often use them even with my catch-all email accounts. I generate them through Firefox Relay, iCloud, and SimpleLogin.
Firefox Relay recently added phone number masking. However, it does not work with services that reject VOIP numbers.
Other Options: iCloud | Fastmail | SimpleLogin
VPN
I also use Mullvad VPN, which is who Mozilla partnered with to provide their VPN service.
Other Options: Mozilla VPN | Proton VPN
Browsing
I use Firefox as my main browser. The only browser I am signed into with my Google account is Chrome, which is what I use to check my email or do anything related to my Google account. Outside of that, I only use Firefox.
Extensions:
- Temporary Containers | Firefox Multi-Account Containers
- ublock Origin
- HTTPS Everywhere
- Privacy Badger
- Clear URLs
Extras Fun
- Quit social media.
- Subscribe to Firefox Monitor.
- Kagi instead of Google.
- Place a credit report freeze.
- Use a hardware authentication device for important accounts (I use Titan).
- Delete your old/unused accounts to reduce your online footprint.
- Request organizations to delete your account.