I will start today's article with a simple question: do you know how many people use cell phones worldwide?
According to a famous research platform called , there are approximately 7.98 billion mobile phone users in the world.
The research was conducted in 2021 and includes basic phones and smartphones. It also warns that there is a tendency for the number to increase over the years. Therefore, today the number is certainly quite different.
Another renowned company, GSMA Intelligence, estimates that there are approximately 5.28 billion unique mobile subscribers worldwide, a number that represents about 67% of the world's population. This company adds more statistics, such as data and trends in mobile phone usage around the world.
The surveys vary in terms of the number of people who use mobile phones worldwide, and it is clear that there are many of them.
For example, the Pew Research Center conducted a global survey among adults in 17 advanced economies, and the surveys found that 91% of the population owned a mobile phone, whether it was basic or a smartphone.
Worldwide Internet Smartphones Users
According to , the company we mentioned earlier, there are approximately 6.6 billion smartphone users in the world in 2022.
However, not all smartphone users have access to the internet, and not all of them use the internet on their smartphones.
A survey conducted by Hootsuite & We Are Social in January 2021 indicates that there are about 4.66 billion active internet users (this includes users of smartphones and other means of internet access such as laptops and desktops).
This number represents a total of 92% of the global population that has access to the internet and connects through smartphones and other devices. Therefore, the survey claims that there are at least 4.28 billion people who have access to the internet using smartphones globally.
Protecting Your Privacy While Browsing, The BRAVE Example
Now, the above data is only for a clear understanding of what we will discuss today - privacy while browsing using a smartphone, and realizing that the vast majority of online users do not protect themselves when accessing the internet. This statement can be justified using statistics from the Brave Browser
The Brave Browser is an essential and effective tool for those who value privacy while browsing online. It protects against trackers, annoying ads, cookies, and everything that attempts to violate the user's privacy while browsing online, and even rewards users for it.
According to the transparency report on the platform, the Brave Browser receives more than 21 million daily users and about 57 million monthly users. As we can see, there are billions of people accessing the internet using smartphones, and only a few million are concerned about online privacy.
They are concerned because they know how valuable privacy is and do not want to be products of companies scattered throughout the internet or fall victim to hackers while browsing and enjoying the web.
The Brave Browser does an excellent job of putting a default privacy shield on the browser because people have the right to choose what information they want to share online, and they are not products for companies to make money from. Therefore, the company behind the Brave Browser shares the profits from ads they receive.
To do so, users receive some non-intrusive ads on the dashboard that they can choose and earn some BAT tokens, the native cryptocurrency of the browser.
Understanding How Cache and Cookies Works
When you browse the internet, your browser stores various data related to your activity, such as cookies, cache, and history. Cookies are small text files that websites store on your device to track your browsing activity and preferences.
Cache is data that your browser stores to help speed up your browsing experience by loading pages faster. History is a record of the websites you have visited.
While these features can be useful for convenience, they can also pose a risk to your privacy. Cookies, for example, can be used to track your browsing activity across different websites, allowing companies to build a profile of your interests and habits.
Cache can potentially reveal information about the websites you have visited, and history can be used to reconstruct your browsing activity. By enabling private mode and disabling the storage of cookies, cache, and history, browsers focused on privacy help to protect your privacy by preventing this data from being saved on your device.
This means that websites cannot track your activity or use your browsing data for targeted advertising or other purposes.
Bottom Line
To conclude and reflect, while the number of smartphone and internet users worldwide continues to rise, it is concerning that only a small percentage of users are concerned about their online privacy.
With the increasing threat of data breaches and tracking by companies, it is vital to prioritize privacy while browsing the internet. The Brave Browser is an excellent tool for safeguarding personal information, and by using private browsing mode and disabling the storage of cookies, cache, and history, users can take control of their online privacy.
Let us take responsibility for our online presence and make conscious efforts to protect our data while enjoying the benefits of the digital world.
