Think You're Anonymous on the Internet?
Just by opening a webpage, you leave behind a trail of data, and the new tool PISIGuard promises to protect your sensitive information in conversations with artificial intelligence.
Just by opening a webpage, you leave behind a trail of data, and the new tool PISIGuard promises to protect your sensitive information in conversations with artificial intelligence.
Just one click is enough to leave a surprisingly precise digital footprint behind you on the internet, warns Super Portal Bjelovar in an analysis published on August 3, 2026. Even when you simply open a page, its server can record your IP address, approximate location, device type, operating system, browser, language, and time of visit. This requires neither accepting cookies nor having a user account.
Although an unknown site doesn't immediately know your name and home address, by linking several seemingly harmless pieces of data with previous visits and logged-in accounts, a very detailed picture of the user can be created.
Your IP address, a numerical identifier for internet communication, most often reveals your country, city, or broader region, as well as your internet service provider. On its own, it doesn't reveal your name, phone number, or exact address, but anonymity quickly diminishes if you regularly log into social networks, shop at online stores, or fill out forms from the same connection. Additionally, your internet service provider knows which user was assigned a particular address at any given time, and this data can be requested under legally prescribed circumstances.
Even without cookies, websites can collect your browser's digital fingerprint-a combination of technical data such as device model, screen size, time zone, installed fonts, and browser version. Cookies make tracking even easier by remembering what you've viewed and which ads you've clicked. Deleting cookies breaks part of that tracking, but it won't make you completely unrecognizable if you're logged into the same Google, Meta, or other user account.
Photos taken with a smartphone can contain metadata with the date, time, device model, and sometimes GPS coordinates. Large social networks often strip some of this data when you upload, but it's not wise to assume every site or app does the same. A VPN, on the other hand, hides your public IP address and encrypts your traffic, but it doesn't prevent tracking via cookies, logged-in accounts, or your browser's digital fingerprint.
While users unknowingly leave data through browsing, more and more are also consciously sharing it in conversations with artificial intelligence. This very concern prompted the development of the tool PISIGuard, which was published on Hacker News on August 3, 2026. It's a browser extension developed by Codoma.tech that protects personal and sensitive information when using AI chat platforms.
"I built PISIGuard because I'm horrified by how much personal and sensitive information people (including myself) give to AI on a daily basis," said the tool's author, whose name wasn't provided, in a description on GitHub.
The tool works entirely within the user's browser, without sending data to external servers. PISIGuard identifies names, email addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, passwords, API keys, and other sensitive data, replacing them with secure placeholder tags before sending to the AI. When the AI generates a response, the tool restores the original values, making the process nearly invisible to the user.
The extension is available for Chrome, Edge, Opera, Brave, and Firefox, and supports popular AI platforms: ChatGPT, Claude, and DeepSeek. Installation is possible via web stores or by manually loading it from GitHub releases.
For those who want to leave less data on the internet, experts advise regularly updating your browser and devices, rejecting unnecessary cookies, periodically clearing browsing data, and using separate, strong passwords for each important account with two-step verification enabled. It's also important to review app permissions-for example, a calculator doesn't need your location, and a simple game doesn't need your contacts.
Anonymity on the internet is rarely complete, but the amount of data we leave behind largely depends on our settings and habits.
