Do Not Track Plus Makes Sure You Are Not Tracked On The Web

If you read tech blogs and technology oriented sites regularly you notice that privacy is a hot topic on those sites. Most readers who visit those sites cherish their privacy, while the majority of Internet users are likely unaware of how their privacy may be compromised on the Internet.

Tracking is directly related to a user’s privacy online. Tracking happens in a number of ways, but they all have in common that they track the user globally and not only on a single domain or website.

This is done with a number of technological tricks, cookies for instance, unique identifiers or even a user’s IP address if it is not dynamic.

User profiles are generated that are either sold to other companies, or used to display targeted ads to that user.

Do Not Track Plus is an extension for the Chrome browser that informs users about tracking on websites and at the same time blocks those scrips from being executed.

When you visit a website you will see the extension’s address bar icon indicate the number of tracking related scripts that run on the site. All tracking related scripts are sorted into the three categories social buttons, ad networks and companies.

You can click on an entry to see a detailed listing of the scripts that run on the site.

Social buttons are blocked from sending out information. They remain active though which means that you can still like, tweet or +1 posts when you click on them. If you do, the functionality is activated again by Do Not Track Plus.

Ad networks display the scripts that track your activities on the current site. The extension links to opt-out information to prevent those sites from tracking you automatically (for as long as the cookie stays on your system, that is).

The third and final group is a list of all scripts that are tracking you on the site. You can unblock specific companies here. Keep in mind that this is a site-specific setting. If you disable the blocking of Adsense here on Ghacks, you will still have it blocked on all other sites by default.

Why would you want to unblock ads on some sites? To support the webmaster and site operators of course.

The extension furthermore computes an overall score of tracking related scripts that it blocked for you. You can turn off the extension on particular sites with a click on the On button in the top left corner of the screen. One of the issues that you will experience if you turn it off completely or on a per-script basis is that you need to reload the page manually before the changes become visible.

A click on Settings displays all companies that the extension recognizes on the web. Here you can unblock a specific company globally.

Watch the video below for more information:

The core issue that I personally have with the program is that it is not available in the Chrome web store, but only on the developer’s website.

Chrome users can download Do Not Track Plus from that website.

Update: The add-on is also available in a version for the Firefox and Opera web browser.

Wipe 2011, Privacy And Tracking Focused CCleaner Alternative

If you ask Windows users which temporary file cleaning program they use then the chance is high that you get CCleaner as the answer. The popular tool has not lost any of its appeal ever since it was first introduced by its parent company Piriform (I first reviewed the program in 2005).

But CCleaner is nowhere near as complete as it could be. This has for instance been shown by CCleaner Enhancer, a program that adds more than 200 different cleaning rule sets to CCleaner.

Windows users looking for a CCleaner alternative have several programs at their disposal. I reviewed some of them, like System Ninja or Clear Prog in the past here on Ghacks Technology News.

Wipe 2011 is another CCleaner alternative. The program concentrates more on privacy and tracking orientated traces on the system and even identifies data that CCleaner does not find by default.

When you first start the program you will notice that it will start to scan the system for tracks and garbage. The delete tracks and garbage option is selected by default. This setting is a click one delete all option, a click on continue would delete all data found by Wipe 2011 during the scan.

Users who want more control over the process should switch to the Advanced cleaning mode option which displays the programs findings in list form with options to prevent the cleaning of specific data points on the PC system.

The advanced listing displays all of its findings in table form. listed are the type of data search, the files and Registry entries found and the total amount of disk space in bytes occupied by the data.

Checkboxes are provided to enable or disable groups or individual titles from the cleanup.

CCleaner users will find that Wipe 2011 lists several data locations that CCleaner ignores. Among them the CryptnetURL cache, RSS feeds cache, Direct3D recent program list, game statistics or the recent wallpaper list.

A right-click on any title in the Wipe 2011 software opens a context menu with options to view all contents of a particular location in the application or to delete its contents manually.

Wipe’s missing a backup and restoration option. The program can wipe data permanently from standard platter driven hard drives. Users who want that need to switch from standard deletion to anti-recovery overwrites in the program settings.

Wipe 2011 is a handy CCleaner alternative with a focus on privacy and tracking related data. Windows users can download the program from the developer website. The application is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

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© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
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SurfControl, Time Track Web Usage In Firefox

If you had to write down how much time you spend on the Internet in the past week, could you do that? And would you also be able to list the top 5 sites that you’d consider productive, and the top 5 time wasters in that time? To top that, would you be able to come up with a ratio of productive and unproductive sites that you visited in the past week or even in the past 30 days?

While most users would probably be able to name the top sites that they’d consider most productive and time wasting, only a handful would surely be able to come up with exact figures for the last 30 days.

That’s where the Firefox add-on Surf Control steps in. The add-on tracks web usage over time and displays information about a user’s Internet usage in a dashboard in the browser. To add to that, it also allows the user to define sites as productive or time wasting, and to block sites completely or after a certain allowed usage period.

The tracking happens automatically. When you open the dashboard of the application, you will see the top productive and time wasting site, the productivity over time, browsing habits of current week and the top sites of the week.

Productive sites are marked in blue, unproductive sites in read and sites that have not been marked by the user as productive or unproductive.

A click on Details lists the top productive and time wasting sites of the week, and how time has been wasted in the last 30 days of Internet surfing (provided that the add-on had been installed for that time).

But the add-on is not only about tracking a user’s web usage over time. It can furthermore be used to limit or entirely block access to selected web sites or services.

Blocking a site outright blocks site access whenever the site is opened in the web browser. You can alternatively limit site usage per day to a specific amount of minutes per day. The very same blocked page message appears when you try to open the web page after the time runs out for the day.

This is obviously not a protection but more of a self-control feature. You can easily adjust the time or unblock sites any time in the dashboard.

When you first install SurfControl you need to add the add-on’s buttons to one of Firefox’s toolbars. This is done by selecting Firefox > Options > Toolbar Layout and by dragging and dropping the extension’s icons to the desired location.

Firefox users can download and install SurfControl from the official Mozilla Firefox add-on repository.

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© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
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Post tags: Firefox, internet-explorer, surfcontrol, time tracking, tracking