There are ways of becoming less visible on the internet. Using the Tor browser is one, but that comes with its own risks, as our post discusses. VPN connections disguise your location, disrupting accurate tracking of your browsing habits. However, we leave tracks and histories in a growing number of places. If we want to protect our privacy and information, what other options are available?

A new app for the iPhone promises to help. Jumbo is a free app from the company Jumbo Privacy. Free always sends up red flags here at CRIP.TO because we know that free is never “free.” With most free apps, you are handing over your personal information to the developers. They then sell it to raise operating cash. In this case, Jumbo states that it does not access any personal data stored on your iPhone. And, that’s a good thing.

Here’s how the app works. Once installed, you can connect to the four apps Jumbo currently cleans; Alexa, Facebook, Twitter, and Google Searches. According to the app, everything is handled on the iPhone itself. No information is transmitted to Jumbo’s website or servers where it could be stored. For a test, we installed the app and decided to try it on Alexa and Google Searches. You select the app to clean and sign in to your account to pair it. That’s a little unnerving but we take comfort in knowing the guy behind this app is the same one who brought us the Sunrise calendar app.

After setting everything up, you click the “Start Cleaning” button. Cleaning didn’t take long. A quick look at Google’s search history confirmed it was empty. Looking at the Alexa app’s Activity setting, it did not appear anything changed there. However, logging into Amazon and checking the Alexa Privacy section indicated that the contents for both Voice and Smart Alert Histories had been cleared. Not sure why the iPhone app retained some of it.

That brings us to the question, “Do you need the Jumbo app?” You can enable your browser to delete Google’s search history every time you close the browser. You can log into your Amazon account and delete the Alexa history manually. So, on the surface, Jumbo seems redundant. Where it appears to make sense is convenience. As the number of apps Jumbo can cleanse grows, manual history management becomes more time-consuming. Clicking a single button is much easier than opening several apps and clearing your history one by one.

Protecting data is more critical than ever as we take advantage of all the internet and internet connectivity offers. Jumbo is one way to accomplish this. As you might expect, Skudo thinks rock-solid end-to-end encryption is the only choice for the communication of all personal and company data. We offer the best encryption solution available outside government and military operations. You can learn more here.

In the meantime, it pays to be cautious and delete as much of your online history as possible. Of course, you can delete all your social media accounts, replace your cell phone with a good old-fashioned rotary model, and never use the internet again. Moderation is the best approach, as usual. That and a good dose of caution.