cookie record

Google has found a way to avoid needing cookies, so is pushing to "abolish" them. They are also trying to limit the information shown/used in the URL toolbar.

Try "no script" to see all the companies that "need" to know about your activity on a page. Some sites and companies are gobsmacking.

Farcebook and Twatter have JavaScript are on just about /every/ page you visit. Doesn't take much thought to realise why!

I suspect they just use server-side "cookies". When you've got boatloads of server capacity, it's silly to give the user *any* control over your interactions!

Note that eBay also "knows its you" -- as does Amazon.

Sadly, there are many cross-references that some sites need for pages to load properly. But, they "add value" (?) whereas those, below, don't!

I added them to my hosts(5) file.

I don't do either. Or text. Or any of that stuff.

Still, I'm obviously being tracked. If I search for parakeet toys on google or amazon, I see ads for parakeet toys everywhere.

I use Qubes disposable VMs for browsing, over a VPN, with a useragent switcher. When I close the browser, the VM goes away, and so does the tracking info, and NoScript plus Privacy Badger keep it way down even within a session. I never see targeted ads.

Of course I'm not on antisocial media either.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

It really doesn't matter.

They dump a unique long number in a cookie in your browser. Every site you visit with their javascript initiates an http request to their server. That request contains the long number and referring URL, i.e. the page you visited. Job done, and that info can be sold.

It is unimportant whether that long number is tied to a Farcebook/Twatter account and real life name.

Yup; see above :)

I've seen sites that are *only* JavaScript, several MB of inextricable code, while the stuff that's actually shown on screen isn't worth more than a few kB. Slow! Clumsy! Broken! Grrr!

The web used to be about compatibility, generality, robustness and durability of information. Those days are gone. A huge step backwards.

I'm sure Sir Tim is horrified.

Jeroen Belleman

But you can block the cookies...

... and scripts from that domain.

Of course, there's nothing to prevent individual domains from "kabitzing" behind the scenes.

One can also fingerprint browsers and, when coupled with originating IP address, provide lots of identifying information. They don't care that it's "Joe Blow" but, rather, that "it's likely the same person that just visited foo.com in search of tent peg grease"

Amusingly, the more you try to lock down your browser, the more *unique* (identifiable) you appear!

Sadly, Mozilla *used* to have a convenient hook to disable images on a page -- at a time when most ads *were* images!

Some sites really need the cookies, so I can't block them all.

I have a cookie reporter and deleter add-on to Firefox. As noted, I've seen 54 on a first visit.

That's far less easy/useful in firefox than it used to be. Many people noted that, to no avail.

Yup. NoScript works a treat.

Exactly.

Arguably he has bigger concerns :(

Don't forget to add web designers that insist on inflicting their concept of readability on us, not the original concept of my device defining how best to display their content. Examples: - faint grey characters - nailed-down narrow page columns with lots of whitespace on either side, but so much information to display that it won't fit in /their/ narrow column. Example: RS components' component selector with its own kookie scroolbar - meaningless hieroglyphics instead of simple words - flattie designs that don't indicate what can be clicked etc, ad *nauseum*.

Those in the UK will understand why Victor Meldrew is such a well-loved character.

Some sites are such continuous chaos of popups and stuff that I never visit them.

Google maps is annoying in it's use of greys -- making printing (on a monochrome printer) of those maps more challenging than necessary

Don't you like the one that appears to show a person (web designer?) with it's head up its ass???

- sites that keep tweeking the underlying links so you can't tell if you've already *visited* a particular link (esp true of clickbait news sites)

- silly background imagery that adds nothing to the site

- lengthy pages with "layered" panels that scroll *above* the page instead of the page itself

Amusingly, sites designed for accessibility tend to be much easier to "consume" than the stuff intend to amaze the masses!

In Firefox preferences, under "browsing", make sure both "Make recommendations" lines are UNchecked.

Wond snipped-for-privacy@the.ether.net> wrote in news:sflt11$3e1$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

It matters not. I mentioned something about a matress that some dude threw into the dumpster like an idiot, and the next day I start getting spammed on my phone and my YouTube browsing, etc.

They listen to us through our phones.

Same thing happens for job hunt placement agencies. I get emails all the time now for Truck Driver positions, and I have never applied for such a thing in my life.

If there are going to be ads all over the screen, they may as well be for inductors and parakeet toys.

Possibly page loads would be faster without looking up customized ads.

And you blame this on the chips they've implanted in your head? Yeah, I agree.

Rick C snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

Learn to read, ya dopey jokester wannabe. I said they listen to your phones. Even when you are not on them. The matress conversation was at a parsons abode looking out the front door across the lot at the dumpster.

So I blame your lacking on the chips 'they've' implanted in *your* head.

Yeah, so agree with that, Chippy.

A particular nasty is the type of advert that prevents the page being displayed until after the advert has loaded. Such adverts can be particularly slow since they conduct an online auction for your eyeballs[1] in order to determine which advert to show you based on your browsing history[2]

A few years ago the Farnell website did this, making it unusable when I had an obscure internet problem that prevented me from accessing one of the sites they linked to. I asked them to fix this and they did.

John