Digital Security and Privacy

If you are a researcher or an activist working on politically or legally sensitive issues which might be banned in certain countries, you may want to explore Tor and VPN. These more advanced and cumbersome tools are useful in two specific situations:

• if you are concerned about surveillance through your internet access provider (i.e. state surveillance)
• if you wish to access websites or databases that would be inaccessible or banned in the country you are staying in.

In most situations however, researchers who do not work in sensitive contexts can instead use the simple privacy measures described below.

In a standard situation, you will most likely be using one of the following browsers.

Firefox: The Mozilla Foundation focuses on privacy and security. Firefox blocks third-party cookies by default, and even allows some add-ons to block trackers disguising themselves as first-party. It is our basic recommendation for all operating systems.

Safari: Apple's browser has a good track record on privacy, but it is only available on Apple products. It is also recommended.

Chrome: Google/Alphabet intentionally limits the tracking protections of its browser. This is because their business model is based on targeted advertisement, which requires web tracking technology. We do not recommend using this browser despite its widespread (and sometimes optimised) usage on the web.

Alternative browsers: Chromium (the open-source base of Chrome), Brave (based on Chromium), Opera (also based on Chromium) are potential options, but they are not as privacy-focused as Firefox or Safari. Edge (Microsoft's Windows browser) is not recommended either.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has developed two privacy and security-related add-ons available for most browsers:

• Privacy Badger is highly recommended. It was developed to watch and block web trackers.
• HTTPS Everywhere favours secured HTTPS access to websites whenever possible.
  HTTPS confirms the identity of the site you are visiting, and protects you from interception of the data, such as when you enter your password or consult your webmail. In Firefox, the security of an HTTPS connection is represented with a padlock on the left of your address bar. If it is crossed out, it means the website is not using HTTPS and your connection is not secure.

Ad blockers
These will make your browsing more relaxing and will increase your online privacy. You should still choose carefully: some ad blocker software actually collect your data to sell it, and in some cases, advertisers pay them to keep their ads visible (whitelisting).

Based on current data (2023), we would suggest using uBlock Origin. This ad blocker is open-source, faster than its competitors, and does not have a whitelist. It has advanced features not available on other software such as blocking third-party trackers pretending to be first-party or protecting you against known malware sites. It is available on Firefox, Safari, Edge, and Chromium, but not Chrome for Android. uBlock Origin should not be confused with uBlock, the original version which was acquired by AdBlock.