Leaving Tracks Online? Here’s How to Cover Them

With every click you make online, you leave a trail—a digital footprint. Whether you click to buy the sneakers you’ve been wanting, browse cat videos, or check the forecast, it all gets recorded quietly somewhere. It’s not simply that websites monitor your clicks to serve you ads—your internet trail can be tracked by your internet provider, data sellers, advertisers, and even, occasionally, hackers. So what can you do?

If the prospect of lurking eyes online makes you shiver, you are certainly in the minority. But good news is that taking back some semblance of control is entirely feasible. And you don’t even need to be a geek—simple habits are enough to keep you under the radar.

Let’s get real talkin’ on what it means to leave your mark online and how you can erase it without complicating your life.

So what are digital footprints, exactly?

Let’s break it down. Your digital footprint is really the trail that you leave behind each time you interact online. Some of it is what you post yourself—such as social media posts, comments, and emails. That’s considered your active digital footprint.

But then there’s also the passive side of the matter. It’s all of the stuff that gets picked up in the background, such as when websites get your IP address, location, device type, or how much time you spent on a page. You weren’t directly posting any of this, yet it gets picked up and stored.
The difficult part? Most of us have no idea how much we’re leaving behind.

So, why should you even care?

They shrug it off—“I’ve got nothing to hide.” But it’s less about hiding something sinister. It’s about defending your security, your anonymity, and really, your own peace of mind.

Your private information may end up in the possession of data brokers, becoming the basis of icky ads displayed to you, or, worse still, stolen in a hack. Ever had your computer hijacked or gotten one of those “we know what you did” scam emails? Yeah, that’s not much fun.

And the greater the amount of your data in existence, the simpler it is for organizations—or even governments—to compile a comprehensive profile of you. It may sound sensationalized, but it’s more prevalent than you may realize.

Start with Your Browser

Let’s discuss where we all tend to spend a lot of time: the web browser. Chrome, Safari, Firefox—they all maintain quite a detailed record of what you’ve done. Your history, your cookies, your saved passwords—it’s all logged there.

First of all, get in the habit of cleaning your browser history and cookies every now and then. It’s a little cleaning for your digital self. Alternatively, you can also use private or incognito mode, which keeps your browser from saving that stuff in the first place. But caveat: it doesn’t make you invisible. Your internet provider and websites you look at can still see what you’re doing.

If you’re seriously concerned, you may need to change to a browser that actually prioritizes privacy—such as Brave or Firefox. They both block ads and trackers by default, which means less of your data is leaking.

Use a VPN

A VPN, or Virtual Private Network, functions in a similar way to a tunnel. It conceals your IP address and encrypts your internet connection. If someone were to try to spy on what you’re doing, all that person would see is a load of garbled data. It’s like having an invisibility cloak in the digital world.

Not all VPNs are equal, however. Some of the free ones may log your usage themselves—defeating the whole point. Opt for one that has a reputable history and a no-logs policy.
Once you’re on a VPN, whatever you do in the internet world becomes a whole lot more private. Your internet provider can’t see what websites you’re visiting, and advertisers can’t follow you as easily.

Social media is a huge open diary that you’ve left on the internet. Even if your accounts are private, there’s always something that’s still available to the public—or can be made public in a few clicks.
Consider what you post, what you comment on, and even what pages you like. All of that creates a profile of you, and it isn’t just your friends and followers that see it—companies and apps see it as well.

You may need to check and secure your settings. Restrict the visibility of your posts to specific people, delete apps that you rarely or no longer use, and perhaps even refrain from logging in to

third-party sites using Facebook or Google.

Clean Up Your Old Accounts

Do you recall that random forum you signed up for in 2010? Or that one store website you visited and never returned to? Those accounts still exist, and there’s a very real possibility that they’re storing your personal information.

One of the top digital footprint safety tips is to find and delete old accounts you don’t use. There are apps such as JustDeleteMe that can find you links to pages of account deletion. It’s a bit of effort, but it’s worthwhile.

And in the meantime, change your passwords. If you find yourself using the same one in every corner of the internet (we’ve all fallen victim to that too), a password manager can assist you in keeping unique, strong passwords without having to memorize them all.

Wrapping It Up

We exist in an era in which going online is a normality almost akin to breathing. But that it’s omnipresent doesn’t mean we need to surrender our privacies for nothing.

By doing a few easy steps—making the switch to better browsers, implementing a VPN, changing search engines, and simply keeping an eye on what we post—we can keep our online lives slightly more private. Panic and “tin foil hat” mode are definitely not necessary, but a bit of awareness really does make a significant difference.

Your digital trail needn’t remain permanent. You can tread the internet less loudly and lightly if you inculcate the right habits.