A lot of people think that you need to fork over money in order to maintain any degree of privacy when you browse online, and that would make a lot of people correct. The safest way to browse anonymously or to **reasonably** not leave a trace when browsing is to use a VPN (as well as turn off Javascript and web applets/scripts, disallow all cookies, disable ActiveX, and other things that make the internet worth browsing).
The good news is that you can get a reasonable, leave-no-trace browsing ability in one package by using Tor. You’ve probably heard of it, because the media LOVES to talk about the “Dark Web”, and Tor is the primary method people use to access it. If you’ve never used Tor before, you’re probably thinking that it offers a fast and easy way to reach the “cool” stuff that the internet has to offer. Everyone that has already used Tor knows that it is a SLOW, oftentimes laborious browser. Think of any website you have visited in the last week and it is almost guaranteed not to work on Tor. That’s by design, because Tor blocks all the scripts and web applets that make the internet nice and shiny (and what also allows websites to track you).
So that brings me to the first iteration of my “Quick Hacks”: Opera Browser.
Opera has a built-in VPN that you can turn on/off as you need it. It works a lot faster than Tor AND it won’t break webpages. It isn’t the only free browser that has these features. After all, Tor is free, along with another named UR Browser. The reason I prefer Opera is that almost every website I’ve ever gone to is supported and plays nicely with it.
Opera is definitely NOT a browser you want to use if you are concerned with total internet privacy. For that, you’ll need to do some legwork: create a burner PC and use Tails or Qubes (both are Linux operating systems) ALONG with Tor or PirateBrowser. Opera is only good for getting around firewalls and limiting website tracking, which is **reasonably** all you should need unless you’re a political activist or an enemy of the state 😊