What can your ISP really see?

Your ISP can see your IP address which is assigned to you by the ISP when you take up the service and the kind of information you readily share online.

Using your active IP address your ISP can gather the following information:

• The URLs you visit online
• The pages you visit most frequently
• Your online/offline habits (when you typically log on and off)
• How much time you spend on certain webpages
• Your specific current location (if location services are enabled)
• Your personal relationships
• Your phone numbers
• Your email
• Your social media data

These are all examples of information that we may openly share online. We do sometimes share information unintentionally, such as all those fine print pages you agree to without actually reading first.

The Federal Trade Commission recently issued orders to AT&T, AT&T Mobility, Comcast Xfinity, Google Fiber, T-Mobile, Verizon and Cellco in order to provide specific information regarding the collection, retention and use of customer data.

Here are some methods which will help limit what your ISP tracks from you:

1. Use HTTPS: Using HTTPS does not mean that everything you do online will be encrypted. Using HTTPS instead of HTTP ensures that your data is encrypted before transferring it therefore making it more secure.
2. Use Tor to browse anonymously: Tor is a wide network of virtual tunnels that allow you to browse the internet without leaving traces. Once you download Tor, you will be directed to a special browser called the Tor Browser. This browser will provide you with a protected IP address which is different from your own. Within this browser, you can use the internet anonymously.
3. Use a VPN: A VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a service that lets you access the web safely and privately by routing your connection through a server ultimately hiding your online actions.

Conclusion

It’s important to understand that ISPs are in business for profit. A huge part of that profit comes from the fact that advertisers can use the data that ISPs mine from your browsing habits with a view of targeting you with product information. The fact that many of us willingly put so much of our information online, adds to this pool of mined data and ultimately makes it easier for advertisers and ISPs to track you.

While it might not be possible to stay completely invisible online without staying off the internet altogether, there are things you can do to make it far more difficult for your ISP to track you and your every online move.

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The first thing you should check for in this case is your connection speed. In order to do this, navigate to speedtest.net and click the go button to begin running a speed test for your device. After around 60 seconds, the speed test will present you with your devices results.

Your results will be presented in three stats which are all related to your internet connection speed:

• Ping – also known as latency stands for the number of milliseconds it takes for you to receive a response after sending a request to a server. The lower this number then the faster your connection is to that server. This is extremely important when playing online video games as high ping results will cause the game to lag.
• Download speed – is measured in megabits per second (Mbps) and is how fast your computer can retrieve data from remote servers. The higher your download speed then the quicker you will be able to browse the internet, download files and stream videos.
• Upload speed – is also measured in Mbps and is how fast your computer can send data to other devices on the internet. The faster upload speed then the quicker you can perform tasks such as uploading files to a website. This number is usually less than the download speed since most online activity revolves around downloads.

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In order to speed up the internet you can try to close applications which are Network-Heavy.

If one program is heavily using the network then other applications will suffer, so when experiencing slow network speeds check to see what apps are using your network connection and close them down if necessary.

To do this, press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open the Task Manager then click more details to expand the window if required. Within the Processes tab click the Network header to sort running apps by their network usage.

If any unnecessary program is using excessive bandwidth then you should close it down in order to free up resources for the applications, you require. This is especially important if you want to perform a network-intensive activity like playing online games or video streaming.

Related:

Some common network culprits include:

• Cloud storage services like Dropbox syncing many files.
• Torrent software.
• Files downloading in your browser.
• Video Streaming, especially in 4K or HD.

Thank you for reading and for more details on our products and services, please feel free to visit us at intellope.com. You may just find what you need to boot your business forward.

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