Not sure how to block your ISP from tracking every activity of you?
Anything you do online isn’t private, and by default, your Internet Service Provider (ISP) can see everything you do online. If you don’t know, I would tell you that every download and upload will go through their own infrastructure.
It makes them to track everything and every activity you performed online. And it might be possible that they were even tracking me when I was writing this post.
And once they have your data, they can sell it to the highest bidder or handed over to authorities when requested.
So how can we prevent our privacy from the ISP? And how to block ISP from tracking our every move?
The answer is; It’s easy to block the ISP from tracking every move of yours, and there are few steps we can all take to prevent these ISP tracking and remain anonymous online.
So, if you value your privacy and don’t want your privacy sold for currency, then take privacy seriously and stop blocking every track of ISP using some simple steps.
Even I’m using some simple tricks to block ISP from tracking my activity. But if you live in any of 5/9/14 eyes alliance countries, you should have to take your privacy seriously and stop ISP from monitoring your online activity.
So, now the question is… what are these
5/9/14 Eye Alliances and Which Countries Fall Under It?
The term “five eyes”, “nine eyes”, and “fourteen eyes” alliances often appear in the privacy community, especially when we’re discussing about privacy and VPNs.
In short, if we discuss them, these are just international surveillance alliances representing various countries around the world. These terms are used to describe a coalition of countries that work together to obtain and share all sorts of data.
If you live in any of these coalition countries, then you should have to know that your government could have shared about you and your data with these coalition countries. You can learn more about 5/9/14 eye surveillance here.
And which counties fall under 5/9/14 eye surveillance?
Here is the list of countries that falls under 5/9/14 eye surveillance;
The agencies of these countries often work with Internet Service Providers and other large tech companies to tap key infrastructure for data surveillance.
Fortunately, there are some simple solutions to keep your data safe that we’ll cover below.
But before we share the techniques to prevent your privacy, first we learn
What is ISP
ISP stands for Internet Service Provider. An ISP is a company that provides internet access to organizations and home users.
IN short, An ISP provides you internet access, obviously for a fee. Without an ISP, you’re not able to browse online, post pictures on Facebook, Instagram, and shop online from popular stores like Amazon and Walmart.
What Can My ISP See and Track
As the middleman to your data’s journey to or from the Internet, the ISP can track almost everything about your online journey. It can include monitoring your personal data like Name, Address, Phone Number to the websites you visit online.
But how can they track you?
When you connect to the Internet with an IP address, they assign the IP address to your device by them, and you browse the Internet using their infrastructure. So it’s easy for them to track you and track every data of yourself.
Here are a few things that they’re able to track;
- Your Personal Details: They can easily track your personal details. It can include your Name, Address, Number, Email ID, etc.
- Website You Visit: They’re easily able to track the upload and download of a website and which website you visit. It can also include tracking of torrent website uses and a lot more.
- Content of Website: If you’re not connected to a website that uses SSL certificate or HTTPS, then they can even track the content of the website, and if you submit your card details on these types of sites, then they can even view your credit card information. That makes privacy more concerned.
- Location of You: Whenever you visit any website or connect to the Internet, they can easily track your location from where you’re accessing the Internet with ease.
On top of seeing all of the above information, your ISP can also, of course, tie everything to the name and address of the account holder for internet service (which may or may not be you).
Why is ISP Tracking Me
So do you ever thought why ISP tracks all this information about you?
No?
So here is the answer; They track and monitor your activity for various reasons. It can include monitoring bandwidth throttling, selling your personal data, P2P monitoring, etc.
Below we will discuss these topics on a large level;
1. Data Retention
There are many countries in which ISP are required to retain your data for a certain period. This information is further used by government agencies and is valuable to law enforcement agencies to fight terrorism and find criminals.
Also, revelations made by Edward Snowden have shown that ISP tracking can be used as a tool for mass surveillance, where millions of ordinary people are monitored for no good reason.
2. To Sell Your Personal Data
The certain data stored by ISP about the website you visit, and what type of content you mostly view is helpful for various advertisers. Thus, ISP collects your data and sell it to multiple advertisers for making a huge profit.
In some countries, including the USA, it’s legal for ISPs to sell your personal data, which they have collected to the advertisers, who then analyze your browsing habits and create targeted advertising campaigns.
3. Bandwidth Throttling
Some ISPs are even sneaky to offer you a FUP connection to sell more subscriptions, and then they limit or slow down your speed. We know this as the Bandwidth Throttling.
This will help them to make more money. For example, they might throttle your connection to certain websites because you are streaming videos, using P2P platforms, or choosing their competitors’ content instead of theirs. These practices require them to monitor your traffic.
4. P2P Monitoring
In some countries, Torrent and P2P sharing are illegal. They monitor your sensitive data and identify P2P connections like torrenting and then report it to government agencies for making more money.
If so, they are obliged to send that data to copyright agencies, who then, in their accord, can target users with hefty fines or legal action.
Do ISPs Know What Websites I Browse
Yes, in all cases, ISP can tell which website you visited when it happened, and the amount of data you pulled down from it.
Also, if you visit a website that doesn’t have an active SSL or the secured version of the HTTP protocol, then it can even track all the information about the page. If you use your credit card on these websites, then it can also track your credit card information clearly.
But if you visit a website with an active SSL or secured version of HTTP, then your ISP can only monitor the website address, data you downloaded and uploaded, your time duration on a certain web site, and rest all data are encrypted and secured.
How to Hide Internet Activity From ISPs
Here are a few techniques through which you can block the tracking of ISP. I’m also using these methods to stop tracking by my ISP. These methods are easy and straightforward to follow, and it doesn’t need any technical knowledge.
There are five ways in which you can prevent ISP tracking and hide your internet activity. They are as follows (ordered from most to least effective)
1. Use a VPN
The most foolproof way to block ISP (Internet Service Tracking) is by using a VPN (Virtual Private Network). Any of your devices can use it. For example, You can use it on your mobile device, laptop/desktop, smart TV, and also on your routers to prevent any ISP tracking.
You can use any trusted and most valued VPN provider to prevent ISP tracking by connecting to their VPN server before using an Internet connection. They also have an inbuilt kill switch to close the connection to the internet, if you’re using a VPN.
And to the ISP, if you’re using a VPN, they don’t even know which website you visit or which data you download and upload. It provided the most secure and military-grade encryption to protect your privacy.
But how can VPN block ISP tracking?
VPN takes things a step forward; it actually changes the ISP assigned DNS address with one belonging to the VPN server. This means that if any website you visit or access has no idea that they’re actually talking to you. They’ll think that you’re located to somewhere else because of VPN (which could be in a completely different country, not where you actually are).
The downside of using a VPN is that you’re shifting your privacy from ISP to VPN providers. It means you’ve to use trusted and secured VPN that have zero-logging policies and is one of the most reputable VPN providers.
So choosing a trusted and secured VPN is one of the most important features and below I’ve shared a few best VPNs to protect your privacy. I personally use these VPNs to protect my identity online and browse the internet securely.
1. NordVPN
So the first VPN I personally prefer using is NordVPN. It is one of the best and most used VPN in the market today, and when it comes to performance, no one can beat NordVPN.
This VPN is the most used VPN by me, and it comes with military-grade security and CyberSec feature to block unwanted ads on the websites. This VPN is secure and offers you an encrypted tunnel for your traffic to flow. As a result, no one will be able to see what you are doing on the internet.
If you’re looking for a value for money as well as the most trusted VPN, then not just me, but most of the professionals blindly trust NordVPN. You can also grab up to 75% OFF on NordVPN using our exclusive nordvpn coupon code.
Grab NordVPN to Protect Privacy
2. ExpressVPN
Another most powerful VPN that I prefer to use is ExpressVPN. It costs a little more than NordVPN, but trust me you’ll get a much better user experience and speed. This is one of the best VPN to unblock uncensored websites, and you can access more Netflix geo-location content than any other VPN provider.
This VPN can easily bypass any country restriction and allow you to access any website that you wish to. Moreover, the VPN server keeps you secure on the internet. It hides your IP address and encrypts your network data. As a result, no one will be able to see what you are doing online.
Apart from this, it also uses military-grade security and encryption for better security, and it comes with kill switch too. Even the best part of this service that I have liked is that it has apps for different platforms. No matter if you are using a Mac, Windows, Linux Android, iOS, or any other device, you will get Express VPN support.
Grab ExpressVPN to Protect Privacy
I’ve also reviewed ExpressVPN and NordVPN on my blog. You can check it to learn more about which VPN is best for you. Click here to check it.
2. Use Tor
Another excellent way to hide your privacy from ISP is by using a Tor browser. The Tor browser is one of the most secured browsers, and it is used by various IT experts to remain anonymous while accessing the internet.
Tor is an encrypted browser designed to prevent user privacy. It uses the onion routing technique to creates a randomized path for your data and takes it through multiple nodes (or servers) located anywhere in the world before it reaches its ultimate destination.
Similarly to VPN, everything, and every website you visit is encrypted. Thus it prevents your ISP from tracking your online activity. But Tor only hides your online activities when you’re using their browser, and it can’t prevent you when you’re using some other apps.
Another downside of using Tor is that it makes your browsing slow because of thousands of nodes. So if you need a better experience, I always suggest you to go with a trusted VPN provider.
3. Use a Proxy
Another very useful way to block ISP tracking is by using a proxy server. It is slightly less common but one of the most used ways through which you can block this unwanted spy on your privacy.
Similarly to VPN, a proxy routes your traffic through various servers (it can be inside or outside your resident country). It prevents ISP from finding what data or website you’re accessing over the Internet – But the main issue with using a proxy is that it doesn’t use any encryption and leaving you vulnerable to other attacks and forms of monitoring.
So even if your ISP can’t see what you’re accessing over the internet, but they can still analyze the contents of your data. For example, If you’re downloading something, they’ll know about it.
Can a Proxy Stop Me from Spying?
As I already mentioned above that if you’re using a proxy network, then the transmitted data aren’t encrypted and vulnerable. Still, if you’re using a proxy, your ISP can track various things like download and uploads, and it still leaves you vulnerable to another form of attack.
So for better privacy and security, I always recommend a trusted and reliable VPN provider. They provide military-grade security and prevent any kind of data leakage.
4. Use HTTPS
Using the HTTPS version of a website is another way through which you can prevent various kinds of privacy breaches from your ISP. But using HTTPS or a secure version of HTTP will not hide the website you visit and how much data you download and upload from that website.
Even this website uses a secure version of HTTP, and if you visit this website, you’ll notice a lock icon before the URL in the address box. It showed that this page uses a HTTPS connection.
For example;
If you visit a website that uses a secure version of HTTP (Example: Amazon.com) and uses your credit card on it, then the ISP can only see that you’re visiting Amazon.com website, but it will not show your credit card details.
But in any case, you visit a website with just HTTP protocol, and then your ISP can even see the credit card details. And to prevent this type of issue, I always recommend you to use your card on the website which uses HTTPS protocol and use a VPN for extra security.
More on VPNs and ISP Tracking
Still not convinced why to use a VPN to prevent ISP tracking?
Here are a few FAQ on VPNs. It will surely help in choosing a perfect VPN to prevent your privacy.
What Does My ISP See When I Use a VPN
If you’re using a trusted and reliable VPN that provides better encryption and security, then your ISP can literally see nothing. It prevents ISP from tracking your online activities, the websites you visit, and the data you download and upload at a specific website.
The only thing that your ISP can see encrypted data that is traveling from your device to the internet. In a simple way, it can only see gibberish data that travel from your device to the unknown location of the Internet.
Will My ISP Know I’m Using a VPN
Unless you take special steps to hide the use of a VPN, your ISP can figure out you’re using one. The only thing they’ll know is the IP address of your VPN and then it isn’t hard to figure out the VPN provider from them.
VPN are perfectly legal in most of the countries including the United States, India, Canada, etc. But before using a VPN, make sure to check if it’s legal in your country.
Some of the VPN even offer obfuscated VPN server. It is a special technology which helps to prevent VPN detection. These VPNs can include ExpressVPN, NordVPN, etc.
Can I Use a Free VPN to Stop ISP Monitoring
Yes, you can also use a free VPN to stop ISP blocking. There are a few decent free VPNs that can help in preventing ISP tracking, but I recommend keeping a six-feet distance from free VPNs.
Most of these free VPNs log your personal information and in most of the cases, they even share these data with authorities and even they also sell your privacy.
Wrapping Up!
Your ISP can see all and track all information about you when you browse the web and access any online services. Even if you use your credit card on a site that doesn’t have a secure version of HTTP, then they can even see your credit card details too.
Privacy and anonymity are non-existent. But now you know how you can prevent data and privacy breaches by ISP.
In this guide, I had shared a few methods that will help you to block ISP tracking and now there is something you know about preventing your data. Also, let me know which method you’re using to prevent ISP tracking.