If you are using someone’s wi-fi connection, it may concern you about the websites you are visiting. In such cases, you may ask yourself how to stop wifi owners see your history?
There are several effective ways to avoid the owner looking into your history, such as changing the DNS, using VPN, and more. It mostly depends upon your connection type and sharing to stop ISPs prying eyes.
Using a shared wifi connection involves two types of risks. Hence you cannot comfortably do some sensitive research using the wifi connection.
You should go through this article to stop the ISPs and router owners from sneaking into your private browsing history.
Table Of Contents:
- Several techniques will shield the browsing data stored in the wifi-router or ISP’s logbook.
- It is possible for the wifi router account holder and the ISP to look into the exact browsing history and visited sensitive web pages.
- It is important to block the wifi primary and secondary owners while using a shared wifi connection to undertake important tasks over the internet.
Can The Wifi Owner See My Deleted History?
Not all websites on the internet are secured by encryption or backed by SSL. When you visit a website, the unique IP of the website gets saved in the logbook of the router or to the ISP server. In some countries, the ISPs must track users browsing history.
An ISP looks into the browsing history, the time spent online, PC IP, connection IP, emails, OS, etc. These are one using the Data Retention Law, Advertisement, and censorship mediums.
Therefore, even if you have deleted the browsing history from your internet browser, the Wifi owner or the ISP can see the visited websites and even the contents you clicked.
Deleting history only removes the logged data from your Inter browser application in the form of cache files and saved cookies.
But the moment you hit a website, it gets automatically logged in the router logbook and the ISP. Hence, deleting the browsing history won’t shield the visited website content list to the ISP’s end.
Does Deleting Your History Actually Delete It?
Most internet users think that you can shield yourself from visiting some specific websites by turning on the incognito mode.
Moreover, you may also think that if you delete the browsing history after doing some work.
But this assumption is completely wrong. Deleting the browsing history only removes the data of the websites you have visited. But it does not delete all the traces of your online activity.
There are many ways you or someone else who has access to your device can recover the deleted browsing history.
If you are using Google Chrome, then the Google account saves all your browsing history data. Besides, the application files save the links physically on your device’s hard drive.
Lastly, your Internet service provider knows about all the online activities to some extent. It includes the websites, password length(if encrypted), duration of online, embedded contents and digital media, uploads, downloads, etc.
So if you think simply by deleting the browsing history, you get complete privacy over your internet activity, it is incorrect.
Why It Is Important To Hide The Browsing History?
The importance of hiding the browsing history from the router owner and ISPs depends upon your activity type. Nowadays, most interactions between people have become more digital than physical.
People use the internet for entertainment, business, transactions, education, research, and whatnot.
If you are simply visiting YouTube to watch random videos or Spotify to listen to music, it is not much important to hide the activities. But it is essential for the below-stated aspects.
1. Online Monetary Transactions
Starting from personal transactions to huge banking transactions are done through the internet. If a wring person gets your sophisticated data regarding the transaction, it could be a great loss for you.
There are millions of active scammers and hackers online. They are continuously looking for loopholes to steal data.
2. Online Trade
Most buying and selling products are done online nowadays in this digital world. And it doesn’t only circles around groceries or food items. Online trade has become farfetched to firearms and more lethal items as well.
Losing your sensitive personal data can be backfired on you if this information is leaked to the wrong person.
3. Sensitive Research Activities
If you are using the internet to follow up on some highly delicate research activities, you may not want others to look into it and steal the ideas. Hence, it is important to shield your activity while doing extensive research online.
4. Personal Causes
A person’s life circles around social media sites in today’s world. If you do not keep the website history safe and secured, sensitive conversations, posts, and digital data can be easily used against you.
How To Stop Wifi Owner See Your History?
Use the following techniques to hide your history from the Local Internet Service Providers.
1. Using Virtual Private Network (VPN)
You can use a secure VPN service to fool the ISP from looking into your browsing history. By using a VPN service, your device IP becomes a decoy. Moreover, the connection is rerouted from other IPs all over the world.
Therefore, the direct communication between your device and ISP becomes no longer applicable. It is recommended to use the paid VPN services for a better and more secure result.
2. The Onion Router (TOR)
A Tor browser helps users activate the anonymous version while visiting different websites. It uses several; indirect paths to get logged into the specific links.
The origin of the activity gets hidden because the rerouting of the connection is placed through many random series of servers and nodes. Its downside is the very low browsing speed due to the indirect pathway.
You can use a paid VPN and browse with the TOR for more security.
4. Changing The DNS
You can change the DNS of your connection to confuse the ISPs. Changing DNS results in the changed IP data saved on the ISP’s end. You can manually change the DNS or use services like 1.1.1.1 by Cloudflare.
There is a 1.1.1.1 application for Android-based devices, which automatically changes the DNS. It develops more layers of encryption not to allow the ISP to get the exact web activity.
How Long Is Internet History Stored On The Router?
The wifi router comes with a small memory that stores data such as id, password, connection settings, and history of the visited IPS. The router saves the log details until it gets rebooted or reset.
Besides, it saves the history stored till the log is cleared from the router settings.
Conclusion
In the case of a shared Wi-Fi connection or the ISP, both router owners can track your history. It is important to have some privacy for sophisticated data sharing and visiting.
Now that you have learned how to stop wifi owners from seeing your history. You can avoid data leaking and be less worried about your online activities.
It helps to focus on your work without worrying about someone constantly looking at your browsing histories.