Although it’s from last year, we only recently noticed this article from PC Magazine about how to reclaim your online privacy. It is worth a read in its entirety, but for the impatient who don’t want to click through, here are some highlights.

Cookies Cookies are little strings of text that Web sites store on your computer as a means to identify you to that site later. [...] Cookies are neither good nor evil. They’re a convenience, and like most conveniences, they come at a price. [...] Browser preferences/options let you opt to accept all cookies, accept only those from sites you visit (eliminating those from third-party advertisers, for example), or never accept them at all. The latter is a shoot-yourself-in-the-foot move; go for the “from sites I visit” option and, if you’re paranoid, check the box to be asked for permission before the browser allows the installation of cookies.

Private data The information your browser terms “private” encompasses a lot—everything from your browsing history to download history, the cache of Web page files on your hard drive (aka temporary Internet files), cookies, and even saved passwords. All major browsers can clear all of the above with a button click, and most can be set to delete history whenever the software is closed or by some other time increment. 

Personal Proxies Your broadband modem typically has a unique IP address, and it’s easy for any Web site or other snooper to see; the IP address is usually included in the headers sent with e-mail, too. An IP address alone can easily give an approximation of your location, based on where your ISP is located. [...] What’s needed is a way to surf anonymously that goes beyond browser privacy modes for protection. Luckily, they exist. The fundamental stealth method is an anonymous proxy server. Plug settings from a proxy server into your Internet software (browser and e-mail) and all requests sent to the Internet from that software will be relayed through the proxy. This is also an effective method of making yourself appear to be in another location; the only problem is that you may also find yourself looking at foreign versions of sites like Google, which load languages based on a user’s location. Using a proxy carries the bonus of making your PC less susceptible to outside attacks, but that’s only a problem if you’re not using a router and a software firewall (which you are, right?). Not all proxy servers guarantee anonymity, so choose accordingly. Setting up proxy servers should be simple: You get an IP address and a port number to plug into fields in the options for your browser, e-mail client, and other Internet software.

Encrypted E-mails Using cryptography to ensure that messages can be read only by intended recipients goes back to a time long before e-mail. It’s just easier to implement electronically. [...] Here’s the gist of how public key cryptography like PGP works. You create both a public key and a private key. The former you can tell the world. The latter you tell no one. Ever. All your friends do the same. You use their public key to encrypt things sent to them, they use your public key to send to you. Only your individual private keys can decrypt the messages received, because the public and private keys were created to work hand in hand. Keep things even more on the down-low by creating a “web of trust” between friends, and share your keys only with those in the circle.

Intimate IMs Most IM clients can also send file attachments, which can include malware. It should go without saying, then, that you should accept IMs only from people you know. [...] several of the dominant IM services—AIM, Yahoo!, Microsoft—now offer features like encryption, IM spam blocking, and more, either integrated or through third-party add-ons. Older versions of the AIM client allowed the use of a personal digital certificate for encrypting, just in case someone out there is packet-sniffing your network. You can still get older AIM versions (5.9, for example), and then a free certificate from Comodo.com, or AIMencrypt.com. The current versions of AIM and the business-oriented AIM Pro automatically use SSL when transporting messages, but don’t do certificate encryption anymore. Even Trillian, the multiprotocol IM client, supports this for AIM and ICQ. Yahoo! Messenger has its own stealth and privacy settings, so you can sign on as invisible or ignore people, but it has no encryption of IMs.