How safe can you be on the internet?

I been thinking and reading on ways to be more safe on the internet. One idea was to use a old laptop and put a fresh install of windows on it and use tor on a usb stick that is already has encryption.

I have different ideas and read stuff , but i wonder how safe you can be on the internet even if you try to be 007 with his gadgets .

If i wanted to be really safe i have to not shop on any website or pay bills online. go back to buying music on Cd's and blu rays.

Also use the internet for the time i only need it and not be on 24/7.

Like anyone i am concern for my privacy. that is the point of this question.

What do you all think?

If you really want to be safe and anonymous, Windows is not a good option. Try Debian (or if its an old machine maybe Puppy Linux) on a USB stick.

Thank you very much for the reply

You should not even have a hard drive.

Keep two flash drives on your person. One a Linux live distribution, one you store you files on. Go to any computer and boot off the flash drive.

Plus it's pretty cool because you can turn any computer into your own instantly.

Running from some people are we??

 

It's really better to burn your OS image to a DVD ROM (Read Only Memory) and live boot from it. If your OS is infected with malware, nothing can be written to the disc, so the next time you boot it up it's a clean image.

 

lol no, the point of this question is everyone really safe as they think they are. another question is what i can do as a free person to protect my privacy.

that's a good idea ,thank you.

Not all computers have optical drives. My solution would be a flash drive with physical read-only switch.

I second this, there are a lot of flash drives that have this option and are affordable. I would try to get a USB 3.0 stick for the speed bonus. You could even get the Zalman ZM-VE200 that Logan reviewed a while back. 

Basically this? Yo can go a long way to making yourself hard to find but 100% untraceable? I don't think it is possible with how the Internet works currently.

The Read only switch is often in software, not in hardware, remember the USB firmware viruses out there? The only way to mitigate it would be to see if you can sever the write traces on the USB stick.

^^ this 100% ^^