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Show HN: We made this to help people stop getting tracked (Data Privacy Day)

fixtracking.com

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Re: Show HN: We made this to help people stop getting tracked (Data Privacy Day)

#4

Post by technojunkie »

I love seeing all of these plugins, I use most of them for the various browsers.

What I'd love to know is what's the bare minimum of plugins I need to stop tracking (or as this page calls them, bugs).

For example, on Chrome, it seems to me that using Ghostery, Disconnect, SafeScript, AdBlock Plus and DoNotTrackMe are often overlapping in functionality. The less plugins my browser uses, the less chance of memory bloat (which I experience more as the browser ages).

Re: Show HN: We made this to help people stop getting tracked (Data Privacy Day)

#5

Post by yegg »

technojunkie wrote: post #4

I love seeing all of these plugins, I use most of them for the various browsers. What I'd love to know is what's the bare minimum of plugins I need to stop tracking (or as this page calls them, bugs). For example, on Chrome, it seems to me that using Ghostery, Disconnect, SafeScript, AdBlock Plus and DoNotTrackMe are often overlapping in functionality. The less plugins my browser uses, the less chance of memory bloat…

The intention for the site design was that your minimum request is listed at the top, and then more stuff is in the other tools to consider section at the bottom.

Re: Show HN: We made this to help people stop getting tracked (Data Privacy Day)

#9

Post by stanleydrew »

technojunkie wrote: post #4

I love seeing all of these plugins, I use most of them for the various browsers. What I'd love to know is what's the bare minimum of plugins I need to stop tracking (or as this page calls them, bugs). For example, on Chrome, it seems to me that using Ghostery, Disconnect, SafeScript, AdBlock Plus and DoNotTrackMe are often overlapping in functionality. The less plugins my browser uses, the less chance of memory bloat…

I don't use any plugins installed in Chrome but get all of the same benefits (I believe). Here's how:

    * restrict plugins like flash to click-to-play
    * disable all javascript
    * disable all cookies
Then whitelist the domains whose cookies and javascript you trust. The tools to do this are built into Chrome. It's a two- or three-click process upon visiting any site to whitelist its javascript and select which cookies to accept from a list. I have been browsing this way for about three years now and it's really quite nice once you get used to every site on the entire web being broken when you first visit.

Re: Show HN: We made this to help people stop getting tracked (Data Privacy Day)

#10

Post by stanleydrew »

hgpc wrote: post #6

This makes me think. Is there a way to avoid being tracked by mobile iOS/Android apps (other than not using them)?

Not really. It seems that every Android app I consider installing lately requests the "Phone Calls" permission, in order to grab my device ID. I believe there is an analytics library that most apps use now which relies on that to track users.

If you have a rooted Android phone I think you can install an app that lets you selectively reject permissions for new apps though.

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