"Relying on the government to protect your privacy is like asking a peeping tom to install your window blinds."
-John Perry Barlow
The other day I was talking to a buddy of mine, and I mentioned that, on my laptop, the internet was running really slow. He took one look at my computer, and said, "That's because you are running Internet Explorer, dumb ass!" So I made the switch to Firefox. First, and this is not the point of the post, if you haven't switched over to Firefox, do it. It is faster, customizable, and generally easier to use.
One of the nice features it offers is add-ons. Basically, it adds on features to the browser. One of my favorites is ad-block. Basically, all the ads which take forever to load, no longer load. Very nice. However, the add-on I am pimping is called "TrackMeNot." Here is basically what it does. All major search engines track what things people search in order to create search profiles. They like to know what type of products and services people like. Also, the government is interested in various types of profiles. Now there are ways around this, such as using www.scroogle.org. However, this search engine pretty much sucks. What TrackMeNot does is it sends out searches automatically through all major search engines. I have it set to sending 10 searches a minute. It doesn't open the search, it just adds the search to the record Google keeps. Because they are pretty random, it makes any kind of search profiling impossible, or at least very difficult. Right now I am searching "Lincoln counties will," "good life than," and "Statement affect."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Popular Posts
-
9:41 said "With all due respect, hollow point ammo is only good for the knock down power if it hits correctly, it does not necessaril...
-
An interesting video on the use of 12 gauge birdshot for self defense. This video makes a pretty compelling argument that birdshot is ade... -
Max Velocity wrote an interesting post called The Great Tactical Training Con . I agree with him in some regards but disagree in others. Th...
-
I talked about Battle Drills awhile back. Recently Max Velocity talked about Reacting to Contact . We label the steps differently but basi...
-
Interesting stuff. I shoot that way already to minimize finger fudgery pulling the gun off targer. Good stuff to know all the same. -
Commander_Zero said... First off, congrats on what is probably the most expensive preparedness acquisition short of a dedicated BOV...
-
An AK made out of a shovel . Warning for our more conservative readers the Chive, which is the site I found this on, has pictures of girls ...
-
To everyone who says there is no way gay's are capable of fighting or serving in the military. Kristin formerly Chris Beck, recently re...
-
Been eating my way through the garden which is good. Also got some nets put over the tomatoes so hopefully we can eat the second batch. Sea...
-
Today I want to talk about The Troubles. I previously talked about Operation Banner An Analysis of British Operations in North Ireland .Tha...
Subscribe To
Posts
Comments
8 comments:
Another of my favorite Firefox add-ons is called 'cloudlet'. It helps you to refine a google search.
Let's say you key in 'big money'. A normal google search will give you your 12 quadrillion hits. Cloudlet adds a key words list at the top of the search results to help you narrow down your search. The words are in different font sizes - the bigger the font, the more often that word appeared in the quadrillions of results.
With regular search, the first listed item is some online game. But you want to know how to borrow big money, so you can click the 'borrow' cloudlet link and it narrows your search.
Work quite well.
Regarding privacy, Google has recently released their own browser called 'Chrome'. Works pretty well. One excellent feature is called 'incognito'. If you go to a site in incognito mode, no cookies or history is left on your PC (although the site you visited DOES grab your IP).
Since it leaves no history on your PC, it has been dubbed 'porno mode' by those in the know....
I have been running Firefox for quite awhile but never heard of these. I'll have to check them out.
Another add-on that I love will also speed up those flash-heavy pages.
It's called "Flashblock," although there may be some other variations.
Instead of loading all umpteen flash videos on a page, you get an icon with the letter "f."
Click on that, and the video loads up. Don't click, and you don't waste bandwidth on something you don't want to see.
Thanks!
That rocks. I'd much rather be entertained by random Google ads than chinese sites offering to sell me machine tools, guillotines, Jacobins, and corrupt officials :P
Please read http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/08/trackmenot_1.html and http://www.nomachetejuggling.com/2006/08/21/worst-security-tool-ever/ before using TrackMeNot. Yes, they are older articles, but unless the developers have completely changed their assumptions and methods, I'm inclined to go with what Mr. Schneier says.
And, by the way, the developers' response is highly anaemic. From http://www.mrl.nyu.edu/~dhowe/trackmenot/faq.html#schneier --
I read Bruce Schneier's review that said TrackMeNot doesn't work; is he right?
No. First, his comments targetted the initial alpha release of TMN which is significantly different from the current version. Second, he misconstrues the goals of TMN.
If you want anonymous searching with no IP tracking, try using the Ixquick.com search engine, even has a Firefox toolbar install so you can have it as an option along with Google.
..or, one could try the scroogle scraper http://www.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/scraper.htm
By the way, everyone is using Tor, right? And TrueCrypt for files & hard disks?
Post a Comment