The protection of our data is from my point of view a critical subject which must concern us, and not only from a digital sovereignty point of view. But for those who seek to regain some control over their data, there can be no sovereignty over security.
On the security aspects, even for unsophisticated users, there are three pillars on which to build its security and data protection: the use of an anti-virus and the establishment of a VPN (Virtual Private Network ) or private virtual network and also the use of a password safe.
Antivirus
On the security aspects of your terminal (pc or smartphone, tablet) the first essential means is the antivirus. Most users will be provided with one of the paid or free solutions on the market, at least for their computer. If there are a large number of solutions, the classification proposed by Clubic, offers in the top 10 the following publishers :
For the premium :
- Bitdefender Total security 2020 (Romanian)
- Kapersky Total security 2020 (Russian)
- F-Secure Total 2020 (Finnish)
- Norton 360 Premium (American)
- Eset Smart Security Premium 2020 (Slovak)
- Trend Micro Maximum Security (American)
- Avira Prime 2020 (German, Free version exists)
- Bullgard Premium Protection 2020 (English)
- McAfee Total Protection 2020 (American)
- G-Data Total Security 2020(German)
Pour les gratuits les plus connus :
- Avast Free 2020 (éditeur Czech republic)
- Microsoft Windows Defender (integrated to MS Windows, American)
I would add a discovery for my part, which I have not yet tested: a French antivirus Viruskeeper. A test carried out by Logithèque in 2017 had not been conclusive, but it seems that since then, a recent evaluation of 2019 by Logicielgratuit.com makes it a much more favorable analysis for the free version.
For more advanced protection, it is advisable to use the paid versions of the tools offered instead. viruskeeper represents a three-color solution, but to avoid American solutions we have very solid European or Russian solutions which allow us to avoid North American solutions.
VPN : Virtual Private Network
It is the second pillar to secure your internet browsing and avoid the collection of a certain number of items in the process. What is a VPN? This is software that creates a secure connection between two remote computers. When you use such a solution for your private use, you establish a secure channel between your PC or smartphone and one of the multiple servers offered to you by the VPN provider. The advantage of creating this channel is that the IP address of your device (network address which allows you to be located) is masked by the IP address of the server on which you are connected. We do not know where you are located, the connection being encrypted it improves your security especially when you use free wifi …
The questin, here, is which VPN to choose ? Here is the classification proposed by the Journal du Geek :
- Nordvpn (open source / Panama)
- Cyberghost (Romanian)
- ExpressVPN (British Virgin Islands)
- Trust Zone (Seychelles)
- Freedome (Finnish)
- Surfshark (British Virgin Islands)
- Hidemyass (Britain)
- Avast secure line (Czech republic)
- Ivacy (Singapore)
- Zenmate vpn (German)
- RingVPN (American)
- PureVPN (Hong Kong)
For my part I would add one which seems to me to be on the same level as Nordvpn, and which has the merit of being of European origin (well, Switzerland) it is ProtonVPN. It should be noted that most of the paid antiviruses that we have seen above also offer VPN modules.
Whichever tool you choose, the more data protected the country in which the host is located, the better your protection will be when browsing, shopping online, or downloading.
Password vault
This tool makes it possible to generate complex passwords and to associate them with the corresponding platform, software and identifiers. This avoids “post-it”, or using simple passwords like 12345, 0000, date of birth, first name etc …, which are easy to crack even for amateur “hackers”.
To remember all the passwords that we must generate for access to our platforms and various accounts, the use of a password safe (techadvisor.frrecommendations)
I will not go further in the analysis of this important tool for securing your passwords, but plays a marginal role in protecting your activities from the digital giants.
In conclusion
Even for an inexperienced user, there is now a set of solutions that are fairly easy to implement. These make it possible to secure our devices as well as our navigation and thus to leave less grip on our data to the digital giants even if this is not the main subject addressed.
Our data is ultimately a much more precious commodity than we imagine, taking the right digital sanitation measures will help protect us from the malicious intentions of scammers who rely in particular on the vulnerabilities of free wifis. Secondly, it also allows you to escape the increasingly inquisitive looks of the digital giants including the gafams but let’s not forget their Chinese counterparts
