It is no secret that Facebook tracks its users across the internet. Creep and stalker-of-the-year Mark Zuckerberg violates users' privacy and
has recently become the target of the FTC. Not a member of Facebook? Facebook is tracking you too according to a
USA Today report.
So how can you fight back? There are several free tools available online - most work with
the Firefox web browser. With 2012 seen as a year of
increasing cyber threats, it is time for users to protect themselves and know who is tracking them across the web.
The following free tools will make a trackers' life very difficult and make your browing safer, more secure and more private.
Ghostery: Ghostery will
force trackers to be displayed and blocked, with links to information about those trackers.
NoScript:
NoScript is an add-on for Firefox and can block all scripts.
NoScript has great customization capabilities to allow just what you want.
Adblock Plus: AdBlock
Plus stops many annoyances and allows custom filters.
HTTPSEverywhere:
HTTPSEverywhere is a Firefox extension which generally encrypts connections if the servers will allow it.
Flashblock:
Flashblock replaces flash objects with a button, with click to view details.
OpenDNS:
OpenDNS protects against malware and your ISP from hijacking DNS requests.
Calomel: Calomel often rates encrypted connections insecure for various reasons and displays a color coded icon with
optional 1 click details. Calomel is one of the best encryption information programs out there.
Calomel also gives memory, disk and offline cache usage info in a very nice form. Controls include forcing high strength cypher usage, enables socks5
DNS lookups with proxies, stops DNS prefetch and optionally limits cache to RAM only, + geo-location disable, etc. The website has very clearly written and extensive discussions of browsing security. www.calomel.org
It's interesting that many https websites really have poor
encryption for various reasons, and Calomel points out the flaws.
NoRedirect:
NoRedirect is a Firefox extension which allows you to stop sites such as Verizon from giving you their annoying web search page.
Finally,
Flagfox gives country locations based on server lookup tables, not what the website says.
