Internet privacy

[Shimmy]

What the internet knows about you.

Shocked? I was, even though I already knew it was possible and fairly easy to trace someone's browsing behaviour if you really wanted to bother, this is the first time I read that it's possible for any site to check what your browsing history is. I now set my firefox to delete browsing history every time I close the program. I also disabled the 'visited links' option, and just for the occasional emergency I installed videlia's TOR & Torbutton (though I'll keep it disabled most of the time).

 

[Spamtar]

Thanks for the pointers. I have been hearing some chatter about facebook's invasion of peoples internet privacy but was not clear on the extent.

 

[ajblaise]

What the internet knows about you.

Hmmm. This thing didn't know shit about me!

I'm not super worried about my internet privacy. But there's a great free program called CCleaner that erases all internet, browser, application, and windows data you leave behind. I use it mostly just because it speeds up the computer.

 

[jenocyde]

This site reads stuff that your computer gives it permission to see. Little Snitch went crazy when I clicked on this link, telling me that the site was trying to request info multiple times. I denied it access, nothing came up.

 

[Lady_X]

it listed 9 sites for me.

 

[Laurie]

This site reads stuff that your computer gives it permission to see. Little Snitch went crazy when I clicked on this link, telling me that the site was trying to request info multiple times. I denied it access, nothing came up.

Is it good? I should use it.

 

[jenocyde]

Is it good? I should use it.

It can be annoying because it pops up every time some site requests info from your computer and it happens a surprising amount. Much more than I ever would have thought. But then you can deny, allow once or allow forever. I think it's great. But I think it's Mac only, not sure though.

 

[Shimmy]

Hmmm. This thing didn't know shit about me!

I'm not super worried about my internet privacy. But there's a great free program called CCleaner that erases all internet, browser, application, and windows data you leave behind. I use it mostly just because it speeds up the computer.

CCleaner isn't actually a privacy program, but yes, it has the added benefit of cleaning up your browsing history. I mainly like the registry cleaning tool and the startup tool, because it's difficult finding out which things to remove manually without messing your computer up (in other words, it's an easy way to speed up your computer )

it listed 9 sites for me.

It only lists what you've got in your browsing history, and then it is set to only see what sites you've been on out of the top 5000 or top 20000 sites on the web. However the algorithm can easily be changed to check the top 10.000.000 sites computers are fast enough nowadays. I reckon more sites would show up if they did it this way.

This site reads stuff that your computer gives it permission to see. Little Snitch went crazy when I clicked on this link, telling me that the site was trying to request info multiple times. I denied it access, nothing came up.

Yeah, it's easy to secure you for this type of scanning, took me about 1 minute following the directions from the site. However, the default settings of most internet browsers will allow this site to work it's algorithm and figuring out what sites you've got in your history.

 

[Synapse]

It only listed popular sites, aww, and I was interested to see their analysis of me. But yeah as you say the frequency could be altered which wouldn't be as cool. Which reminds me there is this one that does it too, I'm less fussed by it even though I probably should be.

Mike On Ads

That says that the likelihood of you being FEMALE is 71%
Likelihood of you being MALE is 29%

Checks browsing habits apparently, ha.

Yeah but I do have firewalls and window washer and such that tells me what is going on so at least I'm informed.

 

[ObeyBunny]

They say there are ways you can protect your data.
Google Opt Out Feature Lets Users Protect Privacy By Moving To Remote Village | The Onion - America's Finest News Source | Onion News Network

 

[Daedalus]

What the internet knows about you.

Shocked? I was, even though I already knew it was possible and fairly easy to trace someone's browsing behaviour if you really wanted to bother, this is the first time I read that it's possible for any site to check what your browsing history is. I now set my firefox to delete browsing history every time I close the program. I also disabled the 'visited links' option, and just for the occasional emergency I installed videlia's TOR & Torbutton (though I'll keep it disabled most of the time).

Congratulations, we did not find anything in this category in your browser history.
Feel free to try our other browser history tests.


^^ That's what i get. not surprisingly. I always disable all the history/tracking on my browsers before i use them. And if i am using a public computer, i do the same before i log in. It takes less than a miniute(once you know the settings) and saves a lot of trouble.


Furthermore, there is yet another thing one can do to protect yourself in firefox. Disable the dropdown/intelligent prediction built into the firefox bookmarks.

whenever you start typing something into the firefox url bar, by default it will start to sort through your saved bookmarks(displaying them in a drop down list). if you do not want someone who is sitting next to youl to view whats in your bookmarks, disable this option.


And yep. As Shimmy posted, Tor is good. its almost impossible to crack as its onion routing. i use the built in add on for tor, with Firefox. Ive checked it on forums, and it displays me as from a different country; for every post i make.lol

but then again; for most people Tor its overkill though.

 

[Ming]

*gasp*.

It knows I've been to a porn site .

Crap.

How do I stop this thing knowing that?

 

[Atomic Fiend]

So basically it shows me things that anyone who looked at my dropdown bar could find out?

I'm not worried.

 

[Lady_X]

haha!! ming...just clear your browsing history.