A 101 guide to web browsing anonymity & defeating censorship, while keeping your porn stash safe from detection.
So I’ve been asked several times for tips on being more anonymous online, and securely hiding anything which you don’t want found on your phone or PC. This is meant as only an introduction to becoming safe online, especially for people new to online security and who are at particular risk of getting caught with things they shouldn’t on their phone.
There’s far FAR more needed to be truly anonymous online, so this is absolutely just a beginner’s guide but this will get you 90% of the way!
Here’s how to be able to hide things on your phone. Some of this will be easier & safer if you have access to money on a card, like Credit or Bitcoin (can’t use cash unless you buy a prepaid card or something). If you do, use the options with an * in front, those are the pay options which give you more versatile ways to hide.
1a, install an app like DFNDR VAULT (link 2 below) or LockMyPix (link 1 below)- both of these don’t just hide pictures but actually encrypt them so even if your phone gets taken away, no one can access the pictures without your password (or finger print). There are other free ones, but many don’t list what if any encryption they use- these 2 use what is best (AES-256 for the curious). If you have one you’d like to use, make sure they use that- anything less can be accessed by a determined person or organization.
*1b, If you can pay for it, I recommend getting the pro version of an app like LockMyPix, it has a camouflage feature which almost completely hides the app from someone looking through your phone but is cheaper ($2.99 USD, one time, maybe if asked you can claim it’s a game or something?) than the premium version of DFNDR ($34/year cuz it’s subscription based, not a one time fee) which does the same. If you have an external SD card in your phone, go into the options and tell it to move there- this won’t use up space on your phone storage only the sd (only supported by lockmypix, not dfndr). https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fourchars.lmpfree
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.psafe.stash
That’s really it as far as protecting the data on your phone from detection by parents or teachers, or even law enforcement as long as you use an encrypted one.
BUT, you have to remember these only protect what you save- to secure what you do online (view, download or upload, outside of an encrypted chat like wickr which I STRONGLY recommend in lieu of Snapchat) then you need a VPN (details below). Also, if you use a web browser to get things don’t forget to clear your browser’s history and temporary files every time you close it- if you don’t do this then there will be records of where you’ve been online, by ISP & stored locally on the phone. Apps like tumblr don’t encrypt, but someone would have to cross-reference these ISP records to find what you actually looked at, the app doesn’t store much itself but Tumblr as an example (or your local ISP) can of course see what you do, if they choose to look.
For extra paranoid security: Get a VPN for using the internet anonymously- it won’t matter if you’re on mobile data or wifi as long as you’re connected, no one will be able to see what you do online. Also this will bypass censorship by governments or ISP’s if you experience this.
Free VPNs (link below): These have all been vetted by market insiders- Keep in mind that these usually have limits on how much you can transfer (example like 10 GB) or how fast you can transfer- speed. http://www.techradar.com/vpn/the-best-free-vpn-services-of-2018.
*Paid VPNs- this is the way to go if you have the ability! The only paid VPN I recommend from personal experience, is frootVPN; they’re based in Europe and track 0 usage, with unlimited data transfer. But it costs $5/month or $36/yr. https://frootvpn.com/en/order/purchase
VPN mobile apps (for android)- the only 1 I personally trust is OpenVPN connect; completely free and based on the latest standards. This is just a client you install on your phone, you still need a subscription from a provider (see above).
I’m not sure if they have an iOS version, but if I ever bother to look I’ll update this.
