Soluții

Do VPN Companies Track Your Browsing Data?

• Data 13/02/2021
• Autor Bogdan Cliveti
• -1
• 440

People use VPNs to protect their privacy from hackers, ISPs, and data thieves. But do VPNs themselves collect your browsing data and sell it to third parties? Here’s what you need to know.Here’s the main point: You’re placing an immense amount of trust in the VPN provider you use. Choose carefully! Do you trust your VPN provider more than your internet service provider?

VPNs Can Track You, and They Might

The main selling point of using Virtual Private Networks, or VPNs, is to protect your privacy. They prevent attacks from malicious hackers, stop your internet service provider (ISP) from peeking at your traffic, and mask your information to websites that may collect your personal data. While these claims are generally true, there is one party that you should still be cautious about: the VPN companies themselves.

Before we get into how a VPN may track your browsing data, we’ll explain how a VPN works. A VPN essentially routes your internet connection, provided by your ISP, through a secure, encrypted network powered by the VPN. This changes the IP address that websites can see while simultaneously obscuring your ISP’s ability to see your traffic. These encrypted networks can simulate different IP addresses and locations, which is how you can trick a streaming service like Netflix into thinking you’re in a different country.

In this process, your traffic is passing through a third party, the VPN company’s server. A VPN company may log all the traffic passing through their system, which essentially gives them a full picture of a user’s online browsing behavior. While most reputable VPNs do not spy on their users and have no incentive to do so, it can happen, and there are several examples of this happening.

VPN Spying Incidents

The most high-profile incident of a VPN spying on its users came to light in 2018, with a controversy surrounding the Facebook-owned Onavo Protect app. Facebook released a VPN that claimed to protect and encrypt user traffic. Still, in reality, it was collecting sensitive information from users, such as websites they browsed and apps they opened on their devices. While Facebook did disclose that the app would forward information to Facebook, people that did not read the fine print may not have noticed.

Facebook would then funnel this data into the Facebook Research program, which powered Facebook ad sales and business development initiatives. It would also give Facebook insight into how users browsed competing apps, like Snapchat. You can read more on what happened in our piece on Onavo Protect.

Besides that, dozens of free VPNs were found to be spying on their users. A piece from Buzzfeed News reported that Sensor Analytics, an analytics platform used by investors and developers, owned multiple free VPN apps that collected user information without their knowledge. These apps had millions of downloads and did not explicitly state who they were owned by. The company would then migrate this browsing data into their analytics platform.

You should be especially cautious of VPNs that are free and do not seem to have a paid version or clear business model. There is a chance that these apps make a profit by harvesting user data and selling them to third parties.

No-Logging Policies & VPNs

So should you use a VPN? If you do your research and select a paid VPN with a good reputation, then the chances are low that your VPN is spying on you.

The best way to avoid incidents like these is to look for VPNs with no-logging policies. These policies are an assurance that these companies will not log user traffic at all. Many top paid VPNs such as NordVPN, ExpressVPN, and Mozilla VPN, have explicit no-logging policies on their websites and inside their apps. Having these on their websites means that they could be held liable if they break their policies.

Before you sign up for a VPN, make sure that you meticulously check its website and read some trustworthy reviews first. Here are some of the questions you should ask before you sign up for even a free trial:

• Does the VPN have trustworthy ownership?
• Does it offer paid plans?
• Does the VPN have many trustworthy user reviews?
• Is the VPN verified by trustworthy third parties?
• Does the VPN have an explicit no-logging policy on its website?

Securing Your Privacy

Protecting your privacy does not end with owning a VPN. There are plenty of ways that you can expose yourself if you aren’t careful. Even something as simple as using identical passwords across different websites can compromise your security.

And if you sign in to websites, you can be tracked by that site even if you’re using a VPN. If you’re signed in to Google with bob@gmail.com and you switch on a VPN—well, Google still knows that you are bob@gmail.com. Cookies on your browser stores can also identify you to websites, even after you connect to a VPN.

How to Remove Profile Photos From Your Slack DMs

• Data 13/02/2021
• Autor Bogdan Cliveti
• -1
• 460

In 2020, Slack added profile pictures to the list of users in your Direct Messages. If you’re not a fan, there’s a switch that toggles DM profile pictures on or off. Here’s how to remove people’s avatars from your direct message list.

Before Slack added profile pictures to the list of users in your DMs, the list just showed names and a circle that indicated whether the user was online. (If the circle is empty, the user is offline, if the circle is full, they’re online, and if there is a “z” in the circle, they have notifications turned off.)

After Slack added profile pictures, the list became more colorful, but it was a lot more difficult to see at a glance the status of those you were communicating with.

Thankfully, Slack has a toggle hidden in the communication service’s settings that lets you turn the avatars on or off. Start by opening the Slack client on your Windows 10 PC or Mac. (The setting isn’t available on the mobile for Android, iPhone, or iPad.) With the client open, click on your profile picture in the top-right corner of Slack, then select “Preferences.”

Click the “Sidebar” option on the left and uncheck the “Show profile photos next to DMs” checkbox.

That’s all there is to it. Close the preferences panel and your DMs will be refreshingly photo-free again. Repeat these steps if you ever want to re-enable profile pictures in your Slack DMs.

How to See an iPhone App’s Privacy Details Before Installing It

• Data 13/02/2021
• Autor Bogdan Cliveti
• -3
• 412

Starting in December 2020, the iPhone app store now provides “App Privacy” labels on all of its App Store listings. Using this information, you can make an informed decision about how apps track you and respect your privacy before downloading an app. Here’s how.

• Why Apple’s Sudden Focus on Privacy?

With the launch of iOS 14 last year, Apple recently began putting a stronger public focus on privacy issues in smartphones and the apps that run on them. It’s a way for Apple to differentiate itself from its competitors, and if done well, Apple’s privacy safeguards can benefit its customers.

Until recently, the ways iPhone and iPad apps could track you or use your personal data wasn’t entirely transparent to the user. Apple has set out to change that with new App Store labels that represent a sort of “Nutritional Label” for digital privacy. At a glance, you are now able to see the privacy performance of each app and decide whether it fits your personal comfort level.

• How to Check an App’s Privacy Label on the iPhone App Store

First, open the App Store on your iPhone. While browsing the App Store, locate the entry for the app whose privacy you’d like to check and tap it. In the app’s detailed listing, scroll down until you see the “App Privacy” section.

Under “App Privacy,” you’ll see a summary of privacy information that the app’s developer reported to Apple. Here are the three main sections and what they mean:

• Data Used to Track You: Information used to track you across apps and websites owned by companies other than Apple. This helps advertisers build a profile based on your online behavior so that they can show you personalized advertising.
  
• Data Linked to You: Information collected and linked to your personal identity. For example, Facebook knows your name, and certain information it collects is always linked to your name in its database.
  
• Data Not Linked to You: Information collected but not linked to your identity. In other words, the data is collected but is not stored in a way that would link it with you personally.

Each app uses data in different ways, so you might not see some of these sections on some apps. For example, the Facebook app page does not include a “Data Not Linked to You” section, but for Signal, that is the only section applicable. To get more details on any of these sections, tap the “See Details” button located just beside the “App Privacy” header.

After tapping, you’ll see a detailed page that lists data collected in those three potential categories (although not all three apply to all apps). In some cases, this detailed page will further break it down into subcategories, such as “Third-Party Advertising” and “Developer’s Advertising or Marketing.”

The list of possible data points is too long to explore completely here, but it’s impressive how detailed the privacy details screen can be. For an extreme example, check out the Facebook app’s App Privacy details page, and you’ll be scrolling for six or seven screen lengths.

• What If I Don’t Like the Way an App Uses My Data?

If you find yourself reviewing the App Privacy information on the App Store and not liking what you see, you could do a few things. The first option is to not install the app. There may be an alternative on the app store that respects your privacy better (for example, using Signal instead of WhatsApp).

The second option is to politely ask the developer to create a less privacy-invasive version of its app or service, but the odds are generally long against that one. Over time, we can potentially hope that Apple’s new privacy labels will apply general pressure on the app industry to be more mindful about what information it collects as well as how that information gets used. Until then, at least we have Apple’s new App Privacy section in our arsenal. As the old saying goes, knowledge is power.

How to Split Data Into Multiple Columns in Excel

• Data 13/02/2021
• Autor Bogdan Cliveti
• -8
• 624

If you start an Excel workbook by grouping data into the same cell and later decide to ungroup it, Excel has several easy functions that can split one spreadsheet column into two. Here’s how to use both “Text to Columns” and “Flash Fill.”

How to Use “Text to Columns” in Excel

Select the cells you want to split by clicking the first cell and dragging down to the last cell in the column. In our example, we’ll split the first and last names listed in column A into two different columns, column B (last name) and column C (first name.)

Click the “Data” tab at the top of the Excel Ribbon.

Click the “Text to Columns” button in the Data Tools section.

In the Convert Text to Columns Wizard, select “Delimited” and then click “Next.” Delimited works great in our example, as the names are separated by commas. If the names were separated only by a space, you could select “Fixed width” instead.

Check both the “Comma” and “Space” delimiters and then the “Next” button. Delimiters are simply how the data is separated. In this case, we’re using comma and space because each cell in column A has a comma and a space separating the two. You can use any delimiter that fits your data set.

Next, we’re going to click the cell where we want to start adding the data—in this case B2—and click “Finish.” This will add the first and last names to their respective columns. We could do this differently—for example, adding first names to column B and last names to column C. To do so, we’d highlight the first names in the wizard (notice the black highlight in the screenshot that signifies the active column) and then click the appropriate cell.

You may notice a chime and then an inability to select the cell you want to move the data into. If this happens, just click inside the “Destination” area within the wizard or add the information manually into the Destination field.

How to Use “Flash Fill” in Excel

If you only have a few names, and you don’t want to mess with the Text to Columns Wizard, you can use Flash Fill instead. This, in essence, is a smarter way to copy and paste the data into new cells. Click inside the first cell of the appropriate column—the one named “First, in our example—and type in the first name of the first person in your dataset.

Hit “Enter” on the keyboard to move to the next cell down. From the “Home” tab on the ribbon, click “Editing” and then “Flash Fill.” Alternatively, you can press Ctrl+E on your keyboard.

Flash Fill will try to figure out what you’re trying to accomplish—adding only the first names in this example—and paste the results into the appropriate cells.

Second, click inside the first cell of the Last column and type in the last name of the appropriate person, and hit “Enter” on the keyboard.

• From the “Home” tab, click “Editing” and then “Flash Fill.” Or, use the Ctrl + E keyboard shortcut.
• Once again, Flash Fill will attempt to figure out the data you want to fill into the column.

If Flash Fill doesn’t work properly, there’s always Undo (Ctrl+Z).

How to Enable an Extension in Chrome’s Incognito Mode

• Data 12/02/2021
• Autor Andrei Cristian Nicolae
• -7
• 553