Don't like search engines tracking you? Run your own!

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Haven't watched the video yet, but a couple of points:

1. If you have any Google accounts (GMAIL, Google Docs, Google Drive, etc.), and you stay logged in, Google is tracking your activity as you browse the web. Always log out of your Google account when you aren't actively using their service.

2. DuckDuckGo is a search engine that doesn't track your search history: https://duckduckgo.com/

3. If you are using Firefox or Chrome browsers, you can install a couple of extensions to enhance privacy:
 
Thank zed, I am in the process of setting up my own services, I have a domain name purchased for 3 years, this looks like a nice addition.
Setting everything up now, including my private email server, DNS, etc. Dec 1 got fiber to the house install, one gig up and down. Then bye bye comcrap. net
Yes, pmbug, I am google free and have a pi blocker to keep me that way.
 
DuckDuckGo is a search engine that doesn't track your search history: https://duckduckgo.com/

SearXNG give the search requests unique and random identifiers then uses any and all listed search engines to get a result. None of the queried engines get a handle that can be used to track your history.

I don't know that apps like gmail can actually track activity in other tabs, I am close to certain that Firefox silos each tab's activity. Chrome may be an issue but I'd only use it when there is no other choice.

Some stuff about goggles activity...

 
Nifty Ass System?

It is a little nifty... Synology NAS. It does a lot of stuff. However I am a tech control freak and I think that next time I will build a FreeNAS/TrueNAS box. I keep running into little issues that I'd like more control over.
 
It is a little nifty... Synology NAS. It does a lot of stuff. However I am a tech control freak and I think that next time I will build a FreeNAS/TrueNAS box. I keep running into little issues that I'd like more control over.
I'll take your pixels for it
 
I don't know that apps like gmail can actually track activity in other tabs ...
When you are logged in, you have an active cookie that connects your IP (and possibly other identifiers like your device and browser) to your Google account. When you browse the web and open a page that is using Google Analytics, Google AdSense or some other Google product (CDN content or whatever), they track the traffic requests from your machine (IP, device, browser, etc.) for the service they are providing to the page you are visiting. It doesn't take much to cross reference the databases.
 
When you are logged in, you have an active cookie that connects your IP (and possibly other identifiers like your device and browser) to your Google account. When you browse the web and open a page that is using Google Analytics, Google AdSense or some other Google product (CDN content or whatever), they track the traffic requests from your machine (IP, device, browser, etc.) for the service they are providing to the page you are visiting. It doesn't take much to cross reference the databases.

Oh yeah... no, I run Pi-Hole as a DNS. AdSense gets nuthin.
 
What email service do folks use? I've heard proton mail is end2end encrypted...

But I've also heard that encryption is a fantasy re FBI backdoors....?
 
...
3. If you are using Firefox or Chrome browsers, you can install a couple of extensions to enhance privacy:

We released a new version of Privacy Badger that updates how we fight “link tracking” across a number of Google products. With this update Privacy Badger removes tracking from links in Google Docs, Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Images results. Privacy Badger now also removes tracking from links added after scrolling through Google Search results.

Link tracking is a creepy surveillance tactic that allows a company to follow you whenever you click on a link to leave its website. As we wrote in our original announcement of Google link tracking protection, Google uses different techniques in different browsers. The techniques also vary across Google products. One common link tracking approach surreptitiously redirects the outgoing request through the tracker’s own servers. There is virtually no benefit 1 for you when this happens. The added complexity mostly just helps Google learn more about your browsing.
...

More:

 
Haven't watched the video yet, but a couple of points:

1. If you have any Google accounts (GMAIL, Google Docs, Google Drive, etc.), and you stay logged in, Google is tracking your activity as you browse the web. Always log out of your Google account when you aren't actively using their service.

2. DuckDuckGo is a search engine that doesn't track your search history: https://duckduckgo.com/

3. If you are using Firefox or Chrome browsers, you can install a couple of extensions to enhance privacy:
SearXNG give the search requests unique and random identifiers then uses any and all listed search engines to get a result. None of the queried engines get a handle that can be used to track your history.

I don't know that apps like gmail can actually track activity in other tabs, I am close to certain that Firefox silos each tab's activity. Chrome may be an issue but I'd only use it when there is no other choice.

I know NOTHING about coding; but common sense tells me, if a program is not running, it cannot work. Including its tracking.

Like so many, I got sucked into the Moar Free with Gurgle, twenty years ago. It was a time when all the free email services were dying - like Mail City and Fastmail...all gone. So...although Gurgle had already started tampering with their algos, I couldn't conceive of Infinity data-hoovering, Infinity cooperation with the worst elements of government, and CIA-style stalking. WITH goobermint permission and in fact, funding.

So I'm there. Now I know; gmail is like a public bulletin board. Anything said there goes right to the Data Center for storage and indexing.

BUT. I have about five browsers on my computer. I use Chromium on this machine (installed back when it was in the Mint repository; now it's Chrome or nothing) and Chrome on my other computer.

The purpose is ONLY to get email or do something with money. Yes, the data-hoovers find out what I buy online. That can't be helped, now, since true privacy is but a memory.

But Chromium or Chrome is never left to run while I peruse Japanese anime. So there's no worries about THAT.

Seems a bit simpler, and more on my level, than trying to rewrite FF or other browsers. I just keep them clean of my Gmail and credit-union accounts.
 
The insidious thing about Google is that their data collection efforts are not single pronged. They have multiple prongs for data collection and they can cross reference them to build a pretty comprehensive picture if folks let them.

- Android phones require Google accounts to log in to the Google Play store and install any apps on the phone. Even if you eschew using GMail on the phone, you are likely logged in to a google account. Google gets a lot of data about your phone use (what apps you have installed, when you use the phone, possibly your geo location (google maps permissions), etc.

- Logging to a Google account from multiple devices let's Google know those devices are all related to you (or your account). They can correlate use of those devices to your account even when you are not actively logged in to your Google account (via prongs mentioned below).

- Chrome browsers track your browser activity. Other Google apps also track your activity (Google Maps, GMail, Youtube, Drive, Docs/Sheets, etc.)

Those are prongs that rely upon you using Google technology, but they also have other prongs that don't require folks be using Google tec:h:

- You visit a website that is displaying Google AdSense ads. In order to display an advertisement, Google is getting identifying info about you (or your device/connection - IP address, browser info, etc.).

- You visit a website that is using Google Analytics. A huge swath of the internet uses Google Analytics to track and analyze their visitors/traffic. All that data is stored in Google servers.

Both of the above can be mitigated by using a browser extension like NoScript (mentioned above in post #2). Don't let Google's javascript(s) run and you blind them.
 
- Android phones require Google accounts to log in to the Google Play store and install any apps on the phone
You can still install apps. You just gotta d/l them to your device, and then side load.

Or you can use an open source installer.

I've got android phones and I don't have google's play store on any of them, but I can still install apps.


You can also use a de-googled phone by either buying one, or creating one yourself.
 
Regarding the Google surveillance machine:
...
In response to public pushback to surveillance advertising, some companies are implementing their own changes. Google is rolling out Ad Topics, its new framework for targeted advertising on Chrome. Ad Topics is part of Google’s Privacy Sandbox Initiative. Ad Topics was preceded by FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts), which would have organized users into groups based on their browsing history and served ads to users based on their assigned group. Google ended the FLoC project after facing criticism that the tool would harm user privacy and exacerbate discriminatory and predatory ad targeting. Google claims that Ad Topics incorporates feedback and criticism to the FLoC proposal, but the new system—like all “self-regulatory” approaches to privacy—fails to provide the systemic and reliable protections that consumers need.

The implementation of Ad Topics plays a key role in Google’s plan to stop supporting third-party cookies on Chrome in 2024. Chrome will be the last major browser to stop supporting third-party cookies on its platform—Apple’s Safari began to block third party cookies by default in 2017, and Mozilla’s Firefox did the same in 2019. After falling behind its competitors and facing criticism for previous plans to phase out third-party cookies, Google now touts Ad Topics for its benefits to user privacy and transparency. But Google’s new tool is far from a perfect solution to the harms of surveillance advertising.

To implement Ad Topics, Chrome infers interest-based categories, called “topics,” by evaluating users’ browsing history. ...

More:

 
Like so many, I got sucked into the Moar Free with Gurgle, twenty years ago. It was a time when all the free email services were dying - like Mail City and Fastmail...all gone. So...although Gurgle had already started tampering with their algos, I couldn't conceive of Infinity data-hoovering, Infinity cooperation with the worst elements of government, and CIA-style stalking. WITH goobermint permission and in fact, funding.
We all were neophytes back then. Who among us knew what an algorithm was? Data capture? What's that and why should I care??

Heck, we didn't know anything about Hollywood pedophilia nor Jeffery Epstein, yet here we are today! Experts on it.

I remember being on Yahoo email with 500M of storage when Gmail came into being.

Gmail said 'Free 1G'
Yahoo said 'Free 2G'

within a day it was 5G from Google and the race was on!

Now I have 17G on Google with the 'option' of buying more. I don't need more.

I'm on a Mac an I use the Mac email front that gets feeds from several different email services out there.

As for search engines I'm using Ecosia who purportedly doesn't track. I'm sure somewhere along the way on my travels across the interwebs there is some tracking going on, but I'm old school and don't GAF.

I'm fairly immune to commercials and rarely, if ever purchase based upon what pops up, though I am amused at how I'm 'thinking' of a purchase and it pops up before I even search for it!
 
I'd forgotten about Yahoo.

Interesting that they never tried any of the schitt that Gurgle has done.

Maybe they were the good guys, the nice guys in this contest who finished...last, down and out.
 
EFF is rolling out a new feature for Privacy Badger:

 
The latest version of Privacy Badger 1 replaces embedded tweets with click-to-activate placeholders. This is part of Privacy Badger's widget replacement feature, where certain potentially useful widgets are blocked and then replaced with placeholders. This protects privacy by default while letting you restore the original widget whenever you want it or need it for the page to function.

Websites often include external elements such as social media buttons, comments sections, and video players. Although potentially useful, these “widgets” often track your behavior. The tracking happens regardless of whether you click on the widget. If you see a widget, the widget sees you back.

This is where Privacy Badger's widget replacement comes in. When blocking certain social buttons and other potentially useful widgets, Privacy Badger replaces them with click-to-activate placeholders. You will not be tracked by these replacements unless you explicitly choose to activate them.
...

 
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