Gary Kovacs: Tracking the trackers (Firefox Collusion Add On See Who's Tracking You) Video

Ted Talks ^ | 6/6/2012 | Ted Talks

[Dallas59]

Just installed.....interesting. FR doesn't share. Nobody tracking. Only when clicking a link.

[Dallas59]

Went to Obama.com.....Washington Times is tracking me...;-)

[Doogle]

[Windflier]

You can see and disable trackers on any website with Ghostery for Firefox. You’d be amazed how many some websites use.

[Dallas59]

When I went to Obama.com...

[humblegunner]

Stay away from blogs.

They’ll track you, jack you and whack you.

[Dallas59]

They're watching me...

[SeaDragon]

Ghostery is the best! I have it for both Safari and Firefox. It is just amazing to see how long the list of trackers can be.

[TomGuy]

I use Do Not Track Plus for FF and IE.

http://abine.com/dntdetail.php

[Windflier]

It is just amazing to see how long the list of trackers can be.

I'll say. I've seen some websites that have over twenty activated.

Good thing about Ghostery is, once you've disabled a particular tracking program, it's disabled for any website that employs it.

I've disabled so many now, that it's rare for me to check a website and find one that I haven't already blocked. Great tool, and simple to use.

[Windflier]

Stay away from blogs. They’ll track you, jack you and whack you.

Blogs typically use far fewer trackers than commercial websites. I've been using the Ghostery tool (which shows them and allows you to block them) for about six months now, and have found that to be the case.

I usually don't block any site's hit counter, but everything else is fair game. I don't want anyone following me around.

[TheRobb7]

Ping for later

[NewHampshireDuo]

I use Ghostery and Firefox. Ghostery is very effective. The only tracker I generally see on FR is Google Analytics. click to go to a news site and the number jumps to a dozen and more.

[mnehring]

I get Google Analytics only with FR. Most just ignore Google Analytics because it is on pretty much every site. Other than that, this place is clean.

[grwcfl537]

DNT+ and TOR are working well for me with Safari, Chrome and Firefox. I haven't found a way to use it with Mozilla relatives like Camino and SeaMonkey.

If anyone has found a workaround, would appreciate an answer.

Mel

[CedarDave]

Tech site PING!

[SeaDragon]

I think the most I have seen at one time was 19. I just told it to blaock everything from the get go.

[ShadowAce]

[kanawa]

Thanks. Giving it a try.

[uncommonsense]

Remember, nothing in life is free. Good Wall Street Journal article showing that vendors don't live up to their Terms and Conditions:

details of Google and other advertising companies that were bypassing privacy levels set by users of Apple's Safari browser

"Google Inc. and other advertising companies have been bypassing the privacy settings of millions of people using Apple Inc.'s Web browser on their iPhones and computers—tracking the Web-browsing habits of people who intended for that kind of monitoring to be blocked.

The companies used special computer code that tricks Apple's Safari Web-browsing software into letting them monitor many users. Safari, the most widely used browser on mobile devices, is designed to block such tracking by default."