6 Best Tips to Destroy Ads and Protect Your Identity

 

[UPDATED 2021-12-10]
[originally posted 2020-09-25]

With COVID-19 and it's variants still running rampant throughout the world, millions or even billions of people are using the internet more than ever before.

There are several steps to ensure that your online activity is safe. There are a number of things that you'll need to change to ensure online safety to the highest degree. Some steps are easier than others and some will take huge amounts of discipline and will power to be able to accomplish.


1. Use a computer, not a mobile device. This is the most important tip of the six listed.

    Besides emails, all internet activity should be limited to full computers. The biggest reason is that with computers like PC, Mac, or Linux etc, are more fully capable of blocking AI (Artificial Intelligence), Ads, and identity tracking types of software with Adblocking plugins, VPN software, overlay blockers and other tools. Another reason is that pretty much all mobile apps are designed to track your usage, and are submitted to software that uses AI to determine what you might like or might do next.

Do you want to see what I'm talking about? On any Android mobile device, go to the Google Play Store and pretty much every single app that exists will usually state that it contains ads. Even when it doesn't say "contains ads" that app will probably force you to pay for the App and spend money. The same could be said for the Apps in the Apple AppStore.

Just a couple of quick examples would be common apps like Facebook, or YouTube. The mobile versions of these apps were designed to try to subject you to advertisements based on your tracked internet activity. One time I was trying to watch a video clip on YouTube, and I tried tapping the back button, and then tapping the video again to try and skip ads but, YouTube just kept cycling the ads. This happened up to twelve times before I could watch my video. I could have waited for two ads to play fully through, but I prefer not to be brainwashed.
They do not prevent blocking of ads and purposely don't have mobile tools to block them. For years I've tried. The blocking tools are just not as available or not available at all on mobile platforms. So if you are using any kind of internet activity on a smartphone, tablet, or mobile device, the chances are very high that you will be subjected to advertisements while you use the app whether you like it or not.

However, browsing the full-site versions of Youtube, and Facebook on a full computer grants the ability to install security features on the internet browser. Only on a full computer can you block advertisements via Adblocking plugins, VPN software, overlay blockers and other tools.


2. Use Mozilla Firefox as your main internet browser on the computer.

    There are several other comparable browsers but Mozilla Firefox will allow you the security you need to block ads and tracking.


3. Install Security Plugins and extensions for the Firefox Browser.

The list of plugins or extensions that you will need are as follows:
    A.) Adblock - Firefox version.

    B.) Adblock Plus - Firefox version. 

    C.) Adblocker for YouTube - Firefox version.

    D.) Poper Blocker - Firefox version. 

    E.) Adblocker for Facebook - Firefox version. 

    Each of these plugins requires a tiny bit of configuring, but they are pretty straight forward as soon as you click and install them.

The biggest challenge here is switching all internet activity over to a computer and not using our super convenient handheld devices. This is just one way to help minimize our online presence and keep our information safe.

Every time you sign up for a mobile app with your email and username, you are potentially setting yourself up for getting more ads and are sharing your personal information to each app and the AI that is behind them.


4. Use a VPN. 

    A Virtual Private Network is a service that hides your original IP address, and geo-location. There's a tonne out there that usually cost a monthly or annual subscription. Just search the internet for "personal use VPN". Some people will work for companies that can share their corporate VPN to remote workers so that when they use internet, the internet traffic gets funnelled back to the company network, which is usually backed by several more layers of security.


5. Use Qwant Lite instead of Google.

    Qwant Lite (https://lite.qwant.com) is an internet search engine that does not track usage. It is very important to choose the "Lite" version so that it does not hijack your homepage. Qwant Lite will not keep a history of your user account, it will not keep your history of searches, it will not track you. It will not leave any digital footprints that make it easier for AI to access your personal usage statistics or information much like how Google search does.

    - Qwant Lite - Firefox extension. 


6. Use NewPipe instead of YouTube on Android mobile devices.

    On an Android mobile device then NewPipe is the best ad-free alternative for YouTube content. It uses the YouTube API, which essentially means that it is actually YouTube, but without commercial advertisements and interference. If you have NewPipe, you won't need to pay for YouTube Premium to get rid of ads. NewPipe also has some awesome features like 'Background Play" which allows you to continue to listen to just the audio portion of videos, while you press the power button on your phone to turn off the screen and save battery life. It is absolutely amazing for music playlists from YouTube. Unfortunately Apple iPad and iPhone users are out of luck here.

    - NewPipe (note: You will need to enable the option "Install from Unknown Sources" in your mobile browser.)
    - Whenever Newpipe stops working, there is usually a version update that you will need to install to make it usable and start playing videos again. This can happen quite frequently.

Top 5 Mistakes People Make When Blaming Wi-Fi

 

[UPDATED 2021-12-07]
[originally posted 2018-04-28]

When connecting to Wi-Fi, people will sometimes experience slow or bad connections. That's not to say that the actual Wi-Fi is bad, but there are many other things to consider. This is my list for the top 5 mistakes that people always make when blaming Wi-Fi.


#5. Too many people using one hotspot.

     A Wi-Fi router or Access Point is a true bottleneck. Multiple users will be using the same hotspot. Take a look around and if there are more than 5 people using Wi-Fi, then chances are the connection speeds are going to be limited. These days, each person can have 4 or more Wi-Fi devices on their person at any given time. This includes all IoT (Internet of Things devices), smartphones, tablets, laptops, cameras, and video game systems. Divide a single Wi-Fi connection by the number of users, times the number of devices they are currently using and the shared bandwidth speed of the internet connection speed keeps getting smaller and smaller. In other words, the size of the slice of the Wi-Fi pie shrinks for every device connected. The optimal number of devices on one AP/router should be kept at 15 or less.



#4. Distance.

     People often connect to the Wi-Fi but they don't even try to look at where the router or access point is. The farther away you are from it, the worse the connection will be. Let's say you walk into a building whether it be an office, or shop or a restaurant of some kind, and you connect to the free Wi-Fi but you are only getting 2 out of 5 bars of signal strength. You automatically say, wow this connection sucks. But did you ever take into account where the Wi-Fi is coming from? Can you see the actual access point?


#3. Noise A.K.A Co-channel Interference.

     I'm not acutally talking about audible sounds type of noise. Noise in Wi-Fi terms is talking about co-channel interference from other radio frequency devices. Co-channel interference and noise most often comes from other Wi-Fi devices. So you're connected to a specific Wi-Fi network SSID but, when you were connecting to it, did you see the list of all the other Wi-Fi SSID network names in that list? Those ones are most likely interfering with your current connection. How about your neighbor next to you. Are they using their phone to create a tethered Wi-Fi hotspot for their other devices? Any other Wi-Fi network SSID name, other than the one you are trying to connect to is called a Rogue network, and can potentially cause noise and interference.



#2. Battery Life.

     How low is the battery on your device? If you are using a mobile device, like a smartphone or tablet or something compact, it usually means, the device is likely optimized for lower voltage to extend battery life and also that their Wi-Fi antenna won't be very strong to begin with. What that also means is that there is far less electricity to power the Wi-Fi antenna. As the battery drains past 50% or more, most devices will go into a power saving mode that will likely decrease electrical power and may also reduce the effectiveness of it's Wi-Fi. Some devices will turn off Wi-Fi entirely at a certain point.
 


#1. The age and Wi-Fi standard on their device. (802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax ?)

     Is your device dual-band capable and is it using the latest standard? If your device is less than 4 years old, then the answer is most likely yes. The 5.0 Ghz band on 802.11ac and higher, is the optimal way to use Wi-Fi as it will experience far less noise interference, and has a much higher connection speed. If the device can only use 802.11n or lower, then those connections will be much poorer and susceptible to interference almost always, and will have a much lower connection speed.



Conclusion.

People can be very quick to determine that the Wi-Fi sucks, but in reality it actually doesn't suck at all. All five of the things mentioned above need to be taken into account when troubleshooting. The Wi-Fi router/Access Point could be the absolutely newest, fastest-speed one on the market, and people will still blame it for bad connections, rather than taking a minute to assess their own device and how it connects.

There are also other things to consider, such as the layers past the Wi-Fi router/AP, like "how fast is the actual internet connection?", and "are there any problems on the rest of the wired network?"