Online Security - How to Evade Online Surveillance

Online mass surveillance. We all know about the NSA and its spying, but what are we doing to prevent it? Sure, we can sign petitions and lobby for them to stop, but all this will take time. What can we do now to protect ourselves from this mass surveillance?

Hide your IP address

Hiding your IP address is relatively easy. The easiest and most common way is to use VPN. VPN, which stands for "Virtual Private Network", is a network that encrypts all your internet usage ("traffic") and also hides ("cloaks") your IP address. The only way that someone can see your IP address (considering that you set everything up correctly and are using common sense) is if the VPN provider you're using gives it to them. You can connect to one of these networks usually by using an application provided by the VPN provider. There are quite a few free providers out there such as Hotspot Shield and Windscribe. If you're willing to dish out some cash for a solid provider, then check this list.
If you want even more anonymity (at the cost of speed, though) you should go for Tor. Tor is an open network which directs your Internet traffic through a free, worldwide, volunteer network to enable anonymous communication. You can learn more here.

Avoid Social Media Websites

Most of the information that mass surveillance receives is from social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.). You should try to avoid these at all costs and if you absolutely must use them (to stay in contact with family and friends), don't post anything and don't use their apps. Facebook has even been known to listen in on your conversations if their app is installed on your cellphone.

Use anonymous email

There are quite a few good anonymous email providers out there. Surprisingly for most people, they aren't hard to use and ugly. Recently it has been revealed that Yahoo! had a built-in search engine for the government so that they can search your emails. GMail has been openly reading your emails from the start. Considering that there are many more cases of this, our only other option is to turn to anonymous email providers.
Protonmail is my personal favourite. It's easy to sign up and they support most platforms. Here is a list of some more.

Secure your browser

Most people tend to use Google Chrome, the most popular browser out there. However, it does have a dark side. It does what we call "calling home" which, in essence, means that it sends information to its home, in this case Google, server. This is a bad thing if you are trying to evade surveillance, because even if you are using good practices online (using anonymous email, a VPN, etc.) they can still spy on you.
The best browser for secure and private everyday use is Firefox. Most peoples' excuse for not switching to it is "we don't like how it looks" or "we don't know how to use it". C'mon people. Have you ever even taken a look at it? It's very similar to Chrome in its user interface and other functions.
Now, even if you have Firefox installed, you still need to do a few things to secure it. The first thing you should do is to prevent WebRTC leaks, then you should install some privacy addons, and lastly you should "tweak" it a bit. Don't stress, you only need to do this once, and after it's done you can rest assured that your browser probably won't compromise your privacy and security.

Don't give away personal information

I talked extensively about personal information on the internet in my previous post, so I won't spend much time on this topic here.
This area mostly relies on your common sense. Don't post your personal information publicly on any forum or give it to anyone unless you really, really need to. This information can be used as a weapon against you, and the goal of surveillance is to collect such information.

Done! You should now be sufficiently secure against online mass surveillance.

This is the second post of my Online Security series. You can find part one here. Be sure to follow and upvote to stay up to date. Thanks!