Browser Hygiene: The Ultimate Privacy Guide to Staying Anonymous Online

First-party cookies are set by the website you visit (generally useful). Third-party cookies are set by OTHER domains through ads, social buttons, and analytics scripts - these track you across multiple websites and are the backbone of surveillance advertising. A single webpage can make requests to 50+ tracking domains.

Even without cookies, trackers identify you through: screen resolution, installed fonts, browser plugins, timezone, canvas rendering, audio context, and WebGL renderer. Combined, these create a fingerprint thats 99%+ unique. Test yours at amiunique.org.

Your phone continuously reports location even when not using Maps. Google knows: home address (where phone rests at night), work address (daytime location), commute route, gym visits, doctor appointments, restaurants, social patterns, and shopping preferences. Check your location history at myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols.

Data brokers create profiles including: age, gender, income, education, health conditions (inferred), financial status, political affiliation, psychological traits. This enables price discrimination, credit decisions, employment screening, and targeted manipulation. See your Google ad profile at adssettings.google.com.

Choose privacy-focused browsers: Firefox (with configuration), Brave, or Tor Browser. Essential extensions: uBlock Origin (blocks ads/trackers), Privacy Badger (learns to block), Cookie AutoDelete, Decentraleyes. Use private search engines: DuckDuckGo, Startpage, or Brave Search.

Android: Settings > Location > set most apps to Ask every time or Deny. Turn off Location History and Web and App Activity in Google Account settings. iPhone: Settings > Privacy > Location Services, disable Precise Location for most apps. Consider OpenStreetMap-based apps like OsmAnd or Organic Maps.

Use multiple browsers: Firefox for general browsing, Brave for social media only, Tor for sensitive searches. Use Firefox Multi-Account Containers to separate Google, Facebook, and banking into isolated containers preventing cross-site tracking.

LayerLogix helps businesses with Network-Level Blocking, Privacy-Focused Browser Deployment, Security Awareness Training, Compliance Support, DNS Security, and Policy Development. Contact us to protect your organizations digital privacy while maintaining productivity.