Windows 8 Changes Host File Blocking

[davehc]

"I know in my own experience that my wrongdoings will always find me out"

I had a chuckle at that. I am a poor liar and a poor manipulator. As a result, I have become as close as one can get to being scrupulously honest. LOL.

 

[Kernel]

"Trackers" would be cookies?
I clean these out on an automatic basis, when closing a browser. It does mean I have to log in again, whenever I go to a site - not a gigantic task.

No, not at all. We're not talking cookies nor Adobe's LSOs or anything similar.

Simply - you visit a website - that website has graphics that many times are only 1 pixel by 1 pixel so you can not even see them, or widgets or scripts or any other junk - and these are called "3rd party" sites. And then they know exactly what you just did on the original intended site no matter if you have cookies blocked completely or not.

Simply, you're visiting "their" (3rd party) servers when visiting almost any intended website. Ghostery puts a stop to that, mostly.

 

[HippsieGypsie]

"Trackers" would be cookies?
I clean these out on an automatic basis, when closing a browser. It does mean I have to log in again, whenever I go to a site - not a gigantic task.

No, not at all. We're not talking cookies nor Adobe's LSOs or anything similar.

Simply - you visit a website - that website has graphics that many times are only 1 pixel by 1 pixel so you can not even see them, or widgets or scripts or any other junk - and these are called "3rd party" sites. And then they know exactly what you just did on the original intended site no matter if you have cookies blocked completely or not.

Simply, you're visiting "their" (3rd party) servers when visiting almost any intended website. Ghostery puts a stop to that, mostly.

Interesting indeed. Do you mean that when one visits a site, that is not the original intended site, but another "3rd party" site so as to track one's browsing? If so, does the original site sell this right to them?

Also, is there anything for IE 10 that does the same as the Foxfire plugin?

 

[Kernel]

Interesting indeed. Do you mean that when one visits a site, that is not the original intended site, but another "3rd party" site so as to track one's browsing? If so, does the original site sell this right to them?

Also, is there anything for IE 10 that does the same as the Foxfire plugin?

Worse. The original site makes money from it, yes. It's all a grand scheme and as said, 90-95 percent of sites do it. Many do it only to remain a website because they don't have any other means. Yeah, it's then all sold left, right, upside down and inside out. And I'm only talking corporations and stuff.

ISPs - your OptimumOnline (Cablevision), Verizon, Rogers, Comcast, university networks etc...all log the heck out of everything you do.

Worse even than that is Google logging - so to defeat that - there is https://startpage.com which shows you the Google results without any form of logging or browser tracking whatsoever!



So - in addition to Ghostery, you can use the plugin HTTPSEverywhere. It assures that any website that can be encrypted uses that version of the site available. There are thousands of websites in the program, many very popular ones you know of.

https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

Yes, Ghostery works for all browsers and there is an individual download for each.

If you really do not want to have any tracking in any form, use the above with the TOR Proxy and disable Java and disable Flash.

You can learn a lot more on TOR's site: Tor



Really, you are being tracked by anything and everything you do. If you do not like that as an honest citizen which is entirely acceptable and understandable, the above can educate yourself along with anything else that would like to be asked.

 

[HippsieGypsie]

Thanks much, Kernel. I learned quite a lot tonight. More than what I new.

 

[davehc]

You obviously have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, so I take your word for it. Bottom line for me, though, if that i, indeed, s 100% gospel, and if I was that neurotic, I guess I would stop using the internet entirely. would this site, for example, be considered as being in the "not guilty" 5%?

Unfortunately, (Maybe you can therefore call me neurotic!), I also take the attitude that, beyond a sensible limit, the more safety barriers you put up, the more obvious it is to those interpreting it, that you have something you prefer to hide? In my case I have nothing personal to hide. I keep anything to do with money etc, very carefully protected, with frequent cross checking for interference. I do, of course, get the odd spam in my email but, apart from that, after 20 years or so of internet usage, nothing serious has happened.

I was tempted, and did try the ghoster. One curiosity was that I found the most "attacks" were on sites concerned with, or discussing, attacks !!