What the internet knows about you

wolfric

http://whattheinternetknowsaboutyou.com/

Pretty good stuff... another link to make you paranoid. Also provides solutions. website takes things a bit further and shows you a list of websites you've been on. It then tells you how to avoid getting that sort of detection. Very good for showing exactly how public your browsing history is even when you try to hide it.

snappieT

Wow, I'm impressed.
Shocking really that all of the major browsers let this slip, even if it is in a roundabout way.

CreepingDeath

This is to do with cookie handling in browsers.

Each of those websites listed sets a known "cookie" in your browser and they can leave it on your pc until it expires based on their choosen expiry time.

I use firefox and tell it to delete all cookies everytime I exit.

KC JONES

it only lists google and amazon as pages viewed by me
Edit: I see now it only lists a couple to demonstrate principle

amacachi

I haven't been on one of the sites it lists in about 3 weeks. Still quite annoying.

CrinkElite

Cookies are rarely needed to last longer than the immediate session. if you would rather not be exposed to aggressive tracking online you should have firefox delete all cookies when you close the browser.

there are of course sites that you would rather maintain a cookie for, (Yahoo, Ebay, facebook etc.)
using the firefox plugin 'permit cookie' you can selectively preserve cookies for sites that you explicitly whitelist.

NOBODY should ever have third party cookies enabled, It has no benefit to the user whatsoever. you can change this setting in the privacy tab in FF. (It is enabled by default!!!???)

there is a relatively new and nastier cookie on the scene that can track you by altering your exposed flash settings. this field can be used to store unique identifiers. for this I use 'Better Privacy' another great plugin for FF.

please do not facilitate these tracking methods. Your privacy is your right.

chillin_penguin

it knows nothing about me woo

snappieT

CreepingDeath wrote: »

This is to do with cookie handling in browsers.

No it isn't. It sets hidden links to each of the pages, which your browser will turn another colour (purple, instead of blue) if you've visited that page. It then looks at all of these hidden links using javascript to see if they have changed colour. If they have, you visited that page.

monkeypants

I use Firefox 3.5.5 and it clears everything every time I close it down. I ask it to keep passwords, but that's all. Apparently all it can say that I've visited recently is my homepage from launch (Google).

wolfric

granted guys if you clear your cookies then it won't pick anything up. I use chrome which i'm quite happy to leave full of cookies. I have my firefox set up very restrictively to clear everything once i close and script blocker add blocker etc.

monkeypants

Still a good idea to check it every now and again for peace of mind. I'll be running this on my parents' PC next time I'm there.

gman2k

If you browse incognito, it won't show up either!
Google chrome does it, so does the latest IE.

Anouilh

This

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=1461095


explains further how it works.