You may have already heard about NSFW (not-safe-for-work) or NSFL (not-safe-for-life) and what they mean to your self-preservation or, at the very least, your reputation.
They refer to online content that is best viewed in private. Examples would be medications you take, gifts you check out for your loved ones, and sensitive videos you watch before bed.
Kaspersky’s study about digital privacy showed almost half of respondents (41%) said they apply additional measures when browsing the Internet to hide their information from the websites they visit. The same study revealed that family members, colleagues, and the government are the top three groups of people we don’t want to know certain things about us.
This article explains who can catch sight of your online activities and how to ensure your secrets are safe:
Your family
You likely share a computer and a Wi-Fi network with your family. This means your partner, kids, or parents—anyone you share a home with—could discover traces of your online activities. Here is what could give you away:
- Browser history. It remembers the websites you visit and suggests them the next time you want to visit one of them. It can come in handy but can lead to awkward moments, like if your partner or child types in the letter P (for Pinterest) and gets a suggestion for P(ornhub).
- Targeted advertising. When you open a website, the browser saves cookie files on your computer, which allows the site to remember things about you (like your username, pages you viewed, contents of your shopping cart, etc). They also give ad network-partners of the website’s owner information about you for suggesting similar content. The giants of the Web, such as Google, will not show erotic banners, of course. But less-scrupulous ad networks may.
Tip: It’s best to go into incognito mode before watching private videos, which avoids leaving browsing traces for your family to discover. As for the cookies and browser history you have already accumulated, clear them.
Internet giants
Cookies are not the only way to discover your interests, so incognito mode will not hide information about your hobbies from big Internet corporations. Facebook will still learn about what you like if you visit websites integrated with its analytics and advertising modules — and you would not believe how many of those are around.
Google will still remember what you searched for and what sites you opened in Chrome. This year, Pornhub revealed that the Philippines topped its website viewership for the fourth consecutive year. The website shared that they’ve monitored getting more female viewers than male viewers in the country through the demographics data tracking of Google Analytics.
Tip: Fortunately, not all companies want to collect all the data they can about you. Privacy-centric browsers like Firefox and search engines such as DuckDuckGo and Startpage.com, along with the Private Browsing feature in Kaspersky products, can help prevent tracking by advertising networks and Internet giants.
Your ISP
Few will pause to think that their ISP and the owner of the free Wi-Fi they are using can monitor their traffic. We suggest you put some safety measures in place, which is not nearly as complicated as it may sound.
Tip: Use a secure connection like a VPN (virtual private network) to dodge those whose curiosity gets the better of them. Doing so will encrypt your traffic so strongly that the ISP will see nothing but gibberish.
Porn scammers
Scammers who email you saying they have infected your computer with malware and used a Web camera to make a video of your naughty pleasures really have no idea if you have been watching porn or not. They are simply mass-mailing their threats in the hope that someone will bite.
Tip: Do not fret. Never pay scammers who claim to have caught you watching adult content. If you receive an email like that, send it straight to spam.
Remember safety measures
Although the creators of well-known porn websites protect their reputations, it is not impossible to get your device infected while searching for adult videos. From time to time, cybercriminals hack networks that display ads on such websites or attempt to pass off a fake.
The malware is unlikely to hack your webcam, but it may block your screen with an explicit picture or display gobs of explicit ads in your browser. So, remember these safety measures.
- Choose websites you know. Avoid opening questionable websites from search results that promise premium content free.
- Download apps from official sources only.
- Do not click on links in ads, even if they are hard to resist.
- Use a robust protective solution such as Kaspersky Premium. It will block a malicious program should one attempt to infect your device.
“Remember your digital reputation is closely linked to your personal reputation. With a stroke of unfortunate luck, your online habit or personal information can accidentally become available to others, despite your wishes. Not only would it make you a target of malware but it could end up costing you your job,” said Yeo Siang Tiong, General Manager for Southeast Asia at Kaspersky.
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