Getting to safety on the Internet is quite difficult. I used to have no idea how easy it was to get information about a person through the Internet. So now, I never enter real data when I do anything online. Moreover, to make sure no one can track me on the Internet, I use [soax.com], and for a good reason. I used to use VPNs, but now they do not guarantee anonymity. Using other proxy servers is much more effective because no one can find your real location.

Why use proxy servers?

Holy crap, just more reasons you'll get my juke out of my cold dead hands.
/and I was actually entertaining a smart phone for a minute.

"Smishing" - just learnt a neologism. And that's the best kind of 'gism

My Wi-Fi is password protected. It is my own Wi-Fi through CenturyLink.

Yeh good advice .. Always encrypt the OS is a biggie .. If being a Wifi hotspot also need to VPN because of certain threats.

I always run a hotspot & it goes everywhere with me normally .. on Main sim phone I have no apps and it's just a flashed ROMMED router in effect with low capability on android 4... but butchered heavily.. the other phone runs through a vpn.. So none of my data on my data phone is linked to my sim .. then if I get a hack through the data that target sims it's safer. I always run on maximum characters so I think name of hotspot is 32 diigts or something and 64 digits passkey. Would be a mare to hack through and need to packet sniff after disabling the VPN anyway, to get that far; so would be there for years.

I personally use Norton App Locker or the Google Os one for a level of personal security on certain aps too, though there are lockable windows in adroid 6 + too.

If you aren't too worried, unlock & flash the ROM and reinstall the phone with Cyanogen Mod instead of google app store! That is a good way to outstrip the bad apps and the Cyanogen ones are largely open source and the whole community knows them like linux.

Worth buying a popular old phone to hack!! Much fun.

Simples, I have an old style flip phone and if anyone teases me I just tell them I'm not smart But will pass the link on to family and friends, thank you.

Good info!