Surfing the Internet daily, watching videos, shopping online, and other activities leave behind a very long chain of digital footprints. By collecting all this information, large companies can recreate a portrait of each user, evaluate it and use it as they see fit. The problem is that their actions will only sometimes be favorable. A company using the recreated portrait risks intrusive advertising and email blasts. But that is far from the worst outcome. What’s terrifying is if crooks and criminals start using this information.

Digital hygiene is a must, and it doesn’t matter what you do on the Internet. You can be an ordinary user or work with a lot of cryptocurrencies. By the way, in this case, it is recommended to use mixers to ensure complete anonymity. https://yomix.io will help you keep your privacy while paying. As for other issues – adhering to the following simple tips will significantly increase your chances of remaining untracked.

Delete your social media and online shopping accounts

Try to remember which social media accounts you have. Start with the most popular social networks and then move on to more local ones. You will likely accumulate a whole list: somewhere you registered pretty consciously and somewhere just for interest or to keep in touch with your friends. Next, remember which online stores you are registered with. Check both large markets and small stores. You can do this simply by opening your browser history – it will show you what sites you’ve visited. This will give you a hint as to where to look up first. Searching your email inbox, where you usually sign up for new accounts for small discounts, will refresh your memory.

To remove these accounts, go to your profile settings and look for the delete feature. Be prepared that there may be a problem with removing some accounts. The fact is that every store or service wants to retain customers, so they purposely make the deletion process as comprehensive as possible. If you can’t delete your account, contact the local administration first. If they also give you a rejection there, then change all the data about yourself in your account to random.

Remove outdated information from search engines

Imagine you have changed a job but still find yourself on your former employer’s website. You may have asked that person to update the data on the page, and they did, but Google (or any other search engine) still gives the old result. This means that the previous version of the page is still stored in the cache. Send the URL with the outdated information to search engine admins and wait. In this case, you shouldn’t hope for 100% results since finders do not guarantee to remove the data on request, but it’s worth a shot.

Take care of your mobile device

The more you use your smartphone or tablet, the more unnecessary content will appear. And the problem is that some of this content can threaten your security. Your old text messages, cookies, images and browser history can be used against you. But that’s far from the only reason you should be cleaning up your devices: if you do a content audit at least once every few months, you can save a significant amount of memory.