On the New York Times homepage, it reported 33 requests from nine domains. (For my tests, I had each tracking blocker scan the same four webpages.)ĭisconnect, for example, reports the detected number of separate requests to external domains. If you do a Web search for tracking blockers, these three typically come up most often.īefore getting into the details of these products, I’ll say that it’s difficult to compare how thoroughly these products block trackers - primarily because they report on trackers in different and often confusing ways. A tour of popular anti-tracking productsįor this article, I took a look at three leading products: Disconnect, DoNotTrackMe, and Ghostery. Blocking that code lets your browser move on to more useful things. Tracker code typically runs each time you load a webpage.
Tracking blockers also offer another, smaller, bonus: users will often notice slightly faster browser performance. Unless you want to exempt a specific tracker from being blocked, you might never even call up the blocking app’s configuration utility.
By and large, these products are install-and-forget browser add-ons. Most add-on anti-tracking products either attempt to detect scripts, beacons, and other tracking technologies or keep lists of tracking sites to block - and sometimes both. It’s why you can go to a shopping site and look up a product, then have ads for that product follow you wherever you go on the Internet. And the more they know about you, the more effective the ads will be. So websites use what they know about you to display ads that you’re more likely to click. Sites are paid for ad space - but they’re not paid much. Why so much effort to find out what you do online? Targeted advertising is the most common reason. There are literally hundreds of tracking technologies in use, all designed to record your browsing habits and interests. But trackers use many other techniques for following your online activity, including beacons, bugs, IP-address linking, scripts, tracking pixels, widgets, etc. Most browsers’ tools let you manage the simplest form of tracking - cookies. In last week’s Top Story, “You’re being followed! How to block Web tracking,” I discussed the anti-tracking tools built into the three top browsers: Firefox, Google Chrome, and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Third-party browser add-ons and applications can provide better defenses against websites that want to follow your online activities. TOP STORY Add-ons that help browsers block Web trackersīrowsers provide a fairly good first line of defense against Web tracking, but to protect against beacons, JavaScript trackers, and widgets, you need more.
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