Never do anything on work machines/networks you don't want to have to explain to hr/legal.

Everybody has a cell phone nowadays. There's no excuse not to use your cell phone for private stuff. In fact don't use the company Wi-Fi. You must use the company Wi-Fi then you must use a VPN

But no excuse anymore not to use your phone, you don't need to use the word computer to browse, send emails, flirt, whatever

They see and scan all traffic, even what doesn't go through the browser.

No one should use work laptops other than for work

I never browse personal stuff on a company device. That's what phones are for. I also don't connect to company Wi-Fi on any personal device, because my company makes me sign in with my company's credentials. This should be common sense.

Of course they can, they literally own the machine. You don't own it, so don't treat it like it's your own private job hunting platform or porn viewer.

Anyone that uses work equipment for personal stuff deserves to be found out

Your work can also read your private Slack messages. You have been warned.

I used TOR at work once, to download some RPMs. Corp IT had a fucking meltdown

your work sees all your browser history

Possibly, if they've bothered to configure their machines that way. And only on the browsers they've configured that way and only on their machines.

Also, please don't assume that your work operates the same way as everyone else's work.

Until you get asked by HR why you're breaking their policies by clearing history and why you're doing it. If it's a work device that's not yours, don't expect privacy. It's their property.

I work in cybersec - I’m not going to speak for all businesses or individuals but I will give you my perspective.

Sometimes we need to see browser history to help with timeline correlation, it’s mainly to see “how did this file get here, was it downloaded etc.

Sometimes the investigators need to check out the things they need to check out, BUT

BUT

It needs to be done precisely and sparingly where needed only. This means instead of going through the entire history file, or doing unrelated correlation work (spying on you without cause) you are going to only grab specific timeframes from things you suspect explicitly to prevent any overreach. It’s a tricky balance to hold but also why it’s so important for people in tech to be privacy advocates as well.

There’s a difference between searching for answers to a problem that arose and looking for/predicting problems (thought crime detected!)

Oh no, my employer might find out I'm looking for other jobs after being overloaded for a year and a half and constantly having my concerns/feedback/process improvement initiatives brushed aside.

I’m an infrastructure analyst and at my workplace I implement such rules for specific reasons: 1) we need to be able to have evidence should an employee act maliciously with a company device. We do also monitor all queries but it’s passive. We can drill into your browsing history in great detail but won’t unless we have to (speaking personally here as I follow the code). 2) people will do dumb shit. And will lie to get support. Now, having been on the other end of a support ticket, I get it. Unless you lie a little, you may not get support promptly. Therefore, it’s part of my job to check what’s the lie and what’s the actual issue, which includes being able to see the download history. I would not be surprised if malware is accidentally downloaded and then it autonomously removes itself from the download history as It has happened before. Strictly speaking, this is done for both your safety as well as that of the company. And generally speaking, you should NEVER use your work laptop/phone/iPad for personal use because of all of the above.

So only watch mainstream porn on work computers, got it.

I've always assumed work will be looking at the browser history. Anyone who assumes they won't is an idiot.

Forget chrome management. Any IT shop worth their salt is protecting their egress with a proxy, explicitly or transparently set.

Don't browse the net on your employer's network or devices. Use your phone. Get on 4G/5G.

I mean, MS can literally track you between Windows installs, as long as you're on the same hardware. No surprises here.