8 Tips to Protect Your Browsing Privacy

Online privacy is a hot topic recently with the influx of news stories about Facebook and Cambridge Analytica possibly misusing…

Published 8 years ago in 28th March 2018

By John

Online privacy is a hot topic recently with the influx of news stories about Facebook and Cambridge Analytica possibly misusing users data. Although the news stories are highlighting to people just how much Facebook knows about them, they are not the only company that keeps track of things you do online!

Virtually every interaction that takes place in a web browser is tracked in some way. There are many ways in which you are tracked online, IP address, browser cookies, HTTP referrer headers, browser fingerprints and user agents. All of these things make it possible to trace everything you do online.

Unfortunately, the majority of people are happy to hand out way too much information about themselves too – their location, their relationships and much more online.

For some users, browsing privacy is only just becoming a priority when they are online. Fortunately, we have compiled some tips, add-ons/browser extensions to try and minimize the amount of information available about you and your browsing habits.

Stop oversharing – Take your browsing privacy seriously

Our first and most obvious tip, stop oversharing your information online willingly! Whenever you disclose information online it is there forever. Whether this is on facebook, twitter or other social media try to simply not share information that is not relevant.

Simply customizing your social media settings to restrict who can see what you share is a good starting place.

Turning off location tracking in apps and your google account settings should be your next step.

Unfortunately, information shared willingly only scratches the surface of data that is stored about you online.

“Do Not Track”

All modern web browsers have the ability to toggle on a “do not track” option. This option is a W3C standard that tells websites, when enabled, to stop their user-tracking and disable cross-site user tracking.

An example of this would be targeted adverts. If you have ever been browsing for an item, an electric toothbrush, for example, you may have noticed that for weeks after you see lots of adverts or more electric toothbrushes. This example would not happen if a user had the “do not track” option enabled in their browser.

Ad Blockers

To avoid seeing adverts and many user tracking scripts at all you can simply install an ad blocker. There are many options available to you, common and powerful choices are Ad Block Plus (https://adblockplus.org/) and uBlock Origin (https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock).

Disable browser scripts

A slightly more aggressive way of blocking user tracking scripts is to install a browser add-on/extension that disables them all by default. No Script (https://noscript.net/) and ScriptSafe (https://www.andryou.com/scriptsafe/) are the most common options available.

By default, these extensions will block all Java, JavaScript, Flash and other tracking scripts generated by the site you are visiting. This “white list” approach can break some website until you enable certain scripts but it does give you the freedom and security of having everything off by default.

Become an online ghost with Ghostery – https://www.ghostery.com

Ghostery is a browser extensions/add-on that provides a safer way to browse online. It offers a wide range of features such as enhanced ad-blocking, enhanced anti-tracking, and smart blocking. By default, it blocks thousands of known user tracking scripts. Ghostery offers control over your browsing privacy by allowing you to run individual tracking scripts if for some reason you need them.

HTTPS Everywhere – https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

HTTPS Everywhere is another browser extension/add-on that encrypts your data sent to many major websites.

Although most communication to websites nowadays is done through HTTPS, some information you send may sneak through in an unsecured, un-encrypted form. This is where HTTPS Everywhere steps in – It steps in and takes these unsecured HTTP requests and encrypts them.

Mozilla Facebook container – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/facebook-container/

Following on from recent news stories, the Mozilla foundation has launched their Facebook container. When installed it will delete all of your previous Facebook cookies and ask you to log in using the container tab. It acts like a normal browser tab but with one important difference – Any Facebook activities are isolated from other browser activity.

Any websites with embedded Facebook widgets, such as like or share buttons will not work as your account login is contained inside the Facebook container tab. This makes it so that Facebook loses the ability to track your browsing activity outside of Facebook. A simple yet efficient way of restoring some browsing privacy to your daily Facebook session!

VPN (Virtual Private Network)

In one of our previous articles – Do I need a VPN for 2018 We discussed the pros of a VPN for the average user. The main point that we took from the article was that by having a VPN you are ensuring that all your online browsing information is invisible to your ISP.

A VPN will stop your ISP spying on your online browsing activities but is not a golden bullet to online browsing privacy. Using a (reputable!) VPN in conjunction with some of the add-ons/extensions mentioned in this article would be a very powerful combination to stay safe online.

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How a national security threat label has reignited Indonesia’s LGBTQ debate

Advertisement Asia How a national security threat label has reignited Indonesia’s LGBTQ debate Indonesia last October classified the “spread of LGBTQ culture” as one of the country’s non-military threats. A series of developments thrust the provision into the public eye this month, sparking a debate. A street vendor walks past a banner reading ‘Indonesia

Published 1 week ago in 28th July 2026

Asia

How a national security threat label has reignited Indonesia’s LGBTQ debate

Indonesia last October classified the “spread of LGBTQ culture” as one of the country’s non-military threats. A series of developments thrust the provision into the public eye this month, sparking a debate.

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SINGAPORE: For more than eight months, a provision tucked away in an Indonesian presidential regulation on national defence drew little public attention.

In an appendix to Presidential Regulation No. 111/2025 on the General National Defence Policy signed in October last year, the government classified the “spread of LGBTQ culture” as one of the country’s non-military threats.

The clause, referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and queer culture, appeared alongside a range of other threats deemed capable of affecting national resilience. They included illegal trafficking, natural resource theft, terrorism, atheism and radicalism.

A presidential regulation is a legally binding regulation published in the State Gazette, while General National Defence Policy documents are highly technical and usually attract little public attention outside government and defence circles.

But a series of developments thrust the provision into the public eye this month, sparking a debate on the place of LGBTQ issues in state policy and the extent to which social issues should be framed within Indonesia’s defence strategy.

The issue quickly spread beyond social media into mainstream Indonesian media with national outlets including Antara, Kumparan, and Tempo examining the regulation and prompting public responses from senior government officials.

Some observers and activists say the clause could heighten discrimination against LGBTQ individuals in society, even as Indonesian ministers have defended the regulation while saying the government has no intention of curtailing the fundamental rights of citizens.

“As Indonesian citizens, LGBTQ people are entitled to education, employment, healthcare and other public services without restrictions, segregation or discrimination,” Indonesia’s Human Rights Minister Natalius Pigai told CNA in a phone interview.

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Indonesia’s Human Rights Minister Natalius Pigai. (Photo courtesy of Human Rights Ministry)

But he added that Indonesian society is not ready to accept the LGBTQ community, even as the state remains obliged to respect, protect and fulfil every citizen’s rights to education, employment, healthcare and public services.

“The time has not yet come to formally recognise them as an official group because society is not yet ready to accept them,” he said.

HOW THE CLAUSE CAME TO PUBLIC ATTENTION

While it remains unclear what first drew widespread attention to the provision, it resurfaced amid a series of developments involving LGBTQ issues. One was a Pride Month-themed social media post in mid-June by Suara Mahasiswa, a student publication at the University of Indonesia.

The post had led to a heated online debate, with critics arguing it was inconsistent with Indonesia’s religious and social norms. They questioned why it invoked the Pancasila national ideology to defend the LGBTQ community. Pancasila comprises five principles: Belief in one God, civilised humanity, national unity, democracy and social justice.

The backlash prompted the university to publicly distance itself from the post and launch an internal review.

Then in late June, the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) said it was preparing an academic paper and a draft bill to criminalise LGBTQ-related conduct for Parliament’s National Legislation Programme.

MUI deputy chairman Muhammad Cholil Nafis argued that moral appeals alone were no longer sufficient to curb what he described as the growing activities and campaign surrounding LGBTQ culture.

“If there are no legal penalties at all, it eventually becomes normal. We should not normalise it. Punishment helps people understand that it is not normal,” he said.

“Deviant activities, such as same-sex parties, are now increasingly being displayed openly in public without any sense of shame,” he added.

Scrutiny then shifted to the new regulation that had previously gone largely unnoticed.

The belated attention came as no surprise to Agus Wahyudi, head of the Inter-Religious Studies Programme at Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta.

Documents such as the General National Defence Policy typically circulate within government bureaucracy and rarely become the subject of public debate, he said.

But a provision can take on political significance when a series of events – in this case, the Pride Month-themed social media post and the MUI’s planned bill – draws the public’s notice, said Agus.

“What changed was not necessarily the policy itself, but the public attention it attracted,” Agus said.

WHY WAS IT PLACED IN A NATIONAL DEFENCE DOCUMENT?

Asked whether the presidential regulation represented the first national policy to explicitly mention LGBTQ, human rights lawyer Asfinawati said Indonesia’s 2008 Pornography Law referred to “lesbian” and “homosexual” acts in its explanatory notes to a provision banning the production, distribution and sale of pornographic material.

It defined what the law described as “deviant sexual intercourse” for the purposes of pornography offences, rather than creating a standalone offence based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Presidential Regulation No. 111/2025 goes further by classifying the “spread of LGBTQ culture” itself as a non-military threat, argued Asfinawati, the former chair of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation.

“This regulation no longer links it to sexual conduct. Simply having a particular sexual orientation or gender identity is placed within a threat framework,” she said.

Experts have questioned whether a national defence framework was an appropriate instrument for addressing issues such as sexual orientation and gender identity.

In principle, national defence should focus on military threats, said Tangguh Chairil, a lecturer in security studies at the Department of International Relations at Binus University, Jakarta.

Indonesia, however, classifies threats into three categories: Military, non-military and hybrid. As a result, issues beyond the traditional defence sphere are increasingly viewed as national security issues.

“Because the definition is so broad, almost anything can be treated as a national security threat,” Tangguh told CNA.

Classifying LGBTQ culture as a non-military threat under a defence framework means the issue may be treated as a security concern requiring state attention and resources, he added.

“Issues that have been successfully securitised tend to receive greater attention than others,” he said.

Yusril Ihza Mahendra, Coordinating Minister for Legal Affairs, Human Rights, Immigration, and Corrections, told news outlet Tempo on Jul 9 that “non-military threat” was used to categorise risks against national resilience.

In the socio-cultural context, “resilience” refers to values, ethics, character of the younger generation, families, digital space, and social cohesion, he said.

“What the government perceives as a threat is the campaign, propaganda, and dissemination of LGBT behaviour aimed at altering the values that align with the nation’s culture and morality,” he added.

Indonesia’s Chief Minister for Law and Human Rights, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, speaks as Australia’s Minister for Home Affairs, Tony Burke, listens during a press conference following their meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, December 3, 2024. (REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan)

Asfinawati said the regulation cannot serve as the legal basis for introducing new criminal provisions or for regional governments to impose criminal sanctions unless authorised by law.

Under Indonesian law, a person’s sexual orientation as well as consensual same-sex relations between adults are not, by themselves, criminal offences. The exception is Aceh province, which implements Islamic crimina

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Nigeria: UNICEF chief urges child protection amid security, humanitarian crises

Violence in Nigeria The head of the U.N. children’s agency visited northwestern Nigeria on Friday as conflict, poverty and rising food insecurity leave millions of children in the region in need of aid. Catherine Russell, executive director of UNICEF, toured the state of Sokoto, where the agency is seeking to draw attention to worsening humanitarian

Published 1 week ago in 25th July 2026

Nigeria: UNICEF chief urges child protection amid security, humanitarian crises

Violence in Nigeria

The head of the U.N. children’s agency visited northwestern Nigeria on Friday as conflict, poverty and rising food insecurity leave millions of children in the region in need of aid.

Catherine Russell, executive director of UNICEF, toured the state of Sokoto, where the agency is seeking to draw attention to worsening humanitarian challenges facing children.

She met with state officials and visited UNICEF-supported programs aimed at improving the health of both mothers and children and protecting vulnerable youngsters.

“We have to make sure that children are protected in these conflicts,” she said.

“That their healthcare is protected, that their food is protected, that their education is protected. Children can’t waste years of their life because conflicts are going on.”

Northern Nigeria is already gripped by an intensifying security crisis that has killed thousands.

The ongoing Middle East conflict has deepened food insecurity for millions living in poverty, making children in poor households more vulnerable.

According to UNICEF between 18.3 million and 23.4 million more children in monetarily poor households worldwide have fallen into deeper poverty, including 6.5 million to 8.8 million in Africa.

Nigeria has one of the world’s largest populations of impoverished children, and humanitarian organizations warn that those in the country’s conflict-torn north remain among the most vulnerable.

For some, UNICEF-supported programs have made a tangible difference.

Zainab Bello, 19, said she had been out of school before joining the agency’s “Digital Village” program.

“I was taught digital literacy… how to use a digital tool,” she said.

“I also learned how I can promote my vocational skills on various social media platforms.”