Well, that’s the recent trend of online
marketing. They believe that when they keep stalking you with those products
you might actually come back for a buy.
But the question is, how are those advertisers
able to know where you are, and to serve up related ads from sites you have
visited? They utilize what is called tracking cookies. Is there a way to stop
them?
If you find such ads rather annoying, you can
stop them using Privacy Badger. This is a browser plug-in that detects and
blocks tracking cookies. Privacy Badger prevents advertisers or websites from
tracking your every move on the web.
Privacy Badger is designed to enforce the Do
Not Track setting in your web browser that causes your browser to issue a
request to each website you visit not to track your presence.
Unfortunately, Do Not Track is voluntary, and
websites and third-party trackers are under no obligation to respect your Do
Not Track wishes. This plug-in is compatible with your Chrome and Firefox
browsers and it’s free.
PRIVACY BADGER CHROME AND FIREFOX | TRACKING SITES
Pros
- Blocks most tracking cookies.
- Won’t interfere with other cookies used for login and
session information.
- Puts some badger-like teeth behind the Do Not Track option
in your browser.
Cons
- Currently only works with Chrome and Firefox (Safari and Opera versions are in
the works).
- Only prevents tracking cookies, and not more advanced
tracking systems.
Installing Privacy Badger
Privacy Badger is offered as an add-on app
from the Chrome web store for Google’s Chrome web browser, and, as an
extension, you can download and install directly from the developer’s (Electronic Frontier Foundation) website.
Once installed, Privacy Badger positions
itself as a small icon on the browser’s toolbar, which will display a number
indicating how many possible tracking cookies were detected on the currently
visited the website.
Clicking the badger displays a list of the
cookies, along with a three-position slider for each cookie that
allows you to manually set the blocking level; green for OK, yellow to block
the tracking cookie on the current site, and red to block the domain that issued
the cookie from ever putting a cookie in your browser again.
You don’t have to manually set the blocking
levels; in fact, that would be quite tedious. Privacy Badger starts by letting
all cookies through; that is, provided your other browser cookie settings allow
for that.
Privacy Browser will respect other settings
in your browser. As you move from site to site, the badger keeps an eye on
cookies, very quickly figuring out which ones are being used to track you, and
then blocking them for you.
The process is quite fast. By the time you've
spent a day browsing the web, you'll likely notice many blocked domains in
Privacy Badger, as well as fewer and fewer ads appearing on the websites you
visit.
Privacy Badger Is Not an Ad
Blocker
The badger isn't meant to be an ad blocker,
but over time, ads become blocked because they contain tracking cookies that
are coming from domains Privacy Badger has blocked.
So, while the badger isn't an ad blocker, it
does end up being a major filter of ads with annoying habits.
Review
Privacy Badger is great at blocking tracking
technology while still allowing a website to continue to work. Many other
cookie or ad-blocking apps tend to disrupt websites by blocking all cookies,
even those that are legitimately used by the site for non-tracking or
advertising reasons.
Privacy Badger is
free.
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