Posts Tagged ‘tracking’
Wednesday, February 15th, 2017
“Scandal” might be overstating things a bit, but it turns out that Firefox’s new, privacy-oriented mobile browser isn’t as private as one might assume.
Firefox Focus: the privacy browser, is a free mobile browser for iOS devices by Mozilla designed to protect user privacy while browsing the web. The app “improves the privacy and performance” of a user’s mobile browsing experience by “blocking analytics, social, and advertising trackers” according to the product description on Apple’s iTunes website. It furthermore enables you to erase the browsing history, passwords and cookies easily.
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Tags: firefox, Focus, ios, tracking
Posted in General News, privacy | Comments Off on Firefox Focus Privacy Scandal
Tuesday, November 8th, 2016
Privacy Protection is a never-ending task; there’s always some new threat on the horizon to deal with.
Telemetry — read tracking — seems to be everywhere these days. Microsoft pushes it on Windows, and web and software companies use it as well. While there is certainly some benefit to it on a larger scale, as it may enable these companies to identify broader issues, it is undesirable from a user perspective. Part of that comes from the fact that companies fail to disclose what is being collected and how data is stored and handled once it leaves the user system.
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Tags: nvidia, telemetry, tracking, windows
Posted in privacy, tech tips | Comments Off on Disable Nvidia Telemetry Tracking on Windows
Monday, October 24th, 2016
If you’d rather not be served ads for everything that you search for and mention on Google, you might want to take a look at the privacy settings recommended by this article.
Google made a significant change to the company’s privacy policy recently which changes in a significant way how the company is tracking users on the Internet. Previously, the company kept its DoubleClick advertising engine apart from its core user services such as Gmail, Search or YouTube. While users could give Google consent to use the information for advertising, it required users to become active and opt-in for that.
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Tags: advertising, google, privacy settings, tracking
Posted in privacy, tech tips | Comments Off on Google Intensifies Tracking: Check Your Privacy Settings
Monday, November 23rd, 2015
Most people don’t take the time to check out extensions before installing them, but it’s still a good idea (for a number of reasons.)
Google Chrome extensions can extend the functionality of the web browser or make life easier while browsing the Web. While that is the case, they may also be abused by companies to track users across the Internet, display advertisement or download malicious code to the user system. This article provides you with the means to verify Chrome extensions before you install them. It is important to do so before the extension gets installed in the browser as it may already be too late after installation.
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Tags: chrome, extensions, permissions, privacy, tracking
Posted in General News | Comments Off on Verify Google Chrome Extensions Before You Install Them
Monday, November 2nd, 2015
Here’s a brief summary of the new features and changes that will be included in Firefox 42 …
Firefox 42 will be unveiled officially on November 3, 2015 by Mozilla. This guide walks you through the core changes and feature editions of Firefox 42 for the desktop and Android. All other Firefox channels will receive updates as well on this date. In particular, this means that Firefox Beta will be updated to Firefox Beta 43, Firefox Developer Edition to version 44, Firefox Nightly to version 45, and Firefox ESR to version 38.4.
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Tags: audio muting, Control Center, Firefox 42, privacy, tracking
Posted in software evaluation | Comments Off on Firefox 42 – Find Out what’s New
Wednesday, October 28th, 2015
If browser developers spent less time adding tracking and spying features and more time ensuring that their products are free of bugs, they’d probably have happier customers.
Most modern browsers are not simple tools anymore to display HTML websites properly in the browser. They are complex programs that support a wide variety of technologies including several designed to improve the security and privacy of users. While that is a good thing usually, it may lead to issues as well if these new technologies can be abused.
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Tags: certificate pinning, HSTS, HTTP Public Key Pinning, tracking
Posted in privacy, security | Comments Off on New Browser Security Features have Tracking Side-Effects
Tuesday, August 25th, 2015
If you don’t feel like taking the time and trouble to disable Windows 10’s “phone home” features manually, these privacy tools can provide users with a simplified interface for setting up privacy features quickly.
Windows 10 users can modify the operating system’s privacy settings manually, for instance by disabling express setup during installation or upgrade, or by exploring the Privacy section of the new Settings application. While it gives them full control over each setting, it requires prior knowledge of these settings and time to make the changes. Privacy tools help users in this regard but may limit the control these users have over what is happening in the background depending on how the tool works.
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Tags: phone home, privacy, tracking, Windows 10
Posted in privacy, software evaluation | Comments Off on Comparison of Windows 10 Privacy Tools
Tuesday, May 5th, 2015
The percentage of Apps that secretly connecting to tracking sites is pretty amazing. No matter what you do online, somebody is taking notes.
When it comes to knowing what apps do and don’t do on Android, there is little that average users can find out in advance or after installation. While the requested permissions may provide information about data the app may access or modify, and also about network or Internet connections it may establish, nothing is provide in detail. For instance, you may know that an app connects to the Internet based on its permission requests but you don’t know to which sites and often why.
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Tags: android, Google Play, NoSuchApp, tracking
Posted in privacy, software evaluation | Comments Off on NoSuchApp for Android Highlights Apps Secretly Connecting to Tracking Sites
Friday, March 27th, 2015
Keep in mind that at present, this feature is only available in the nightly versions of Firefox, but it does seem to be a step in the right direction.
Mozilla has been working on a privacy feature called Tracking Protection for some time now. The feature is currently only available in Nightly versions of the desktop version of the web browser and there only after activation. The feature landed in Firefox for Android too but has not found its way to the stable version of the mobile browser yet as well.
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Tags: firefox, private browsing, tracking, tracking protection
Posted in privacy, software evaluation | Comments Off on Firefox 39: Tracking Protection for Private Browsing Mode
Wednesday, January 7th, 2015
Just in case you don’t have enough privacy and security issues to worry about already …
Whenever you use Google or Facebook without being logged in to an account, a cookie is saved to the local system. It is anonymous at this point in time even though it reveals information about your browsing habits to the company that set it. Google for instance knows that you have searched for this and that but cannot link the information to you as a person. The company even states that it uses anonymous identifiers in its privacy policy.
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Tags: cookies, facebook, google, tracking
Posted in privacy | Comments Off on Why You Should Delete Cookies Before Signing in to Google or Facebook
