This app beeps every time your computer sends data to Google

9to5google.com/ ^ | Aug. 22nd 2022 | Kyle Bradshaw -

[BenLurkin]

On the internet today, larger tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon can sometimes feel like inescapable presences. Google, in particular, tracks the way you use its search engine and other apps...

But the things Google keeps track of can actually extend far further than you might expect, given the prevalence of Google Analytics and Google’s ad networks. In an effort to better understand what kinds of data is sent to Google, where it happens, and when it occurs, developer Bert Hubert — best known as the original creator of PowerDNS — created a new app called “Googerteller.”

Googerteller works using the list of IP addresses — freely provided by Google — that are associated with the many Google services, but not those related to Google Cloud. Any time your computer connects to one of those IP addresses, whether while using a program or when browsing the web, you’ll hear a beep sound.

Unfortunately, Googerteller is currently only designed to work on Linux-based operating systems (Debian, Ubuntu, Arch, Fedora, etc)

[aquila48]

Technology is the great disrupter of society.

It changes the “rules for living”, ways of doing things, in an unpredictable manner, and humans are too short sighted to see the long term good and bad of it.

It will require years of experience and consequences with it before it is learned how to use it mostly for good.

[Migraine]

It’s part of keeping your head down. I love it every time I get a popup ad for some establishment in Pocatello. I don’t live anywhere near there. It gives me a sly smile moment each time.

[minnesota_bound]

FTA: Googerteller is currently only designed to work on Linux-based operating systems

Windows is used by 90% of the people and this guy picks the OS that most have not heard of.