Online Stalking & What you can do about it.

One of the worst-kept secrets about the Internet is that it is inherently insecure. For example, when you update your Facebook page or 'like' something on a website, make a credit card purchase or use the gmail webmail app, everything you type is being tracked and analyzed. In a word, what you do on the web is open to full exposure.

For a good article about the pervasiveness of online stalking (what else do you call it when you're followed without knowingly consentng) goto http://tinyurl.com/6obnpdo.

I love the web for what it's providing us. While crap is rather pervasive, so is the good stuff. It provides us with a great way to connect, to shop and to learn. Therefore, it's quite important to me to mitigate my exposure.

One of the best-kept secrets about the Internet is that you can quite easily mitigate the exposure. And you can do it with three add-ons for your browsers.

The three must-have add-ons for Firefox, Chromium (and it's more commercial sister, Chrome) web browsers are Adblock Plus, Do Not Track Plus, and HTTPS Everywhere. Not only do I have them on my devices (Linux, Macs and Windows), but I also encourage all my clients to put them.

Adblock Plus does what its name implies: it blocks ads. It also allows tweaking (with very little effort) if you want to allow ads on a particular site because you want to support that site. Below is a screenshot of the New York Times website without and with Adblock Plus where I've highlighted the ads (and lack thereof).

Note the ads for marcjacobs.com, the “try a times digital subscription;” the graphic which is an ad campaign of sorts; the IngDirect ad; and the “try it now” ad.

But, the same page with AdBlock enabled displays none of them.

With Adblock Plus, you'll stop over 90% of the ads.

From within Firefox, you can add this addon by typing (all at once) Ctrl-Shift-A. This will bring you to a list of your extensions. Click to “Get Add-Ons” and search for Adblock Plus. Click the install button to the right of Adblock Plus.

From within Chrome or Chromium, goto the Chrome Webstore (usually a link will show up if you click the add tab button) and search for Adblock Plus. When you see the add-on, click the “Add to Chrome” button. Not supported in Internet Explorer.

Do Not Track Plus (DNT+). When you visit Facebook's webpage, the servers at facebook will attach a little app that will follow you over the pages you visit. (You agreed to allow them to do this when you signed up.) Other websites also do this regularly. For example, I do a lot of online shopping for both my business and my home. Many websites I visit (often just for price and quality comparisons) try to track me. With DNT+ from Abine, they can try all day, but they won't succeed. I've had DNT+ installed for only a few weeks, and already it has blocked 7800 tracking attempts from social networks like Facebook, four from ad networks and a whopping 27,000 from various companies. Prior to using DNT+, I was completely unaware of the number of companies tracking me. Dang. The collected data must be very valuable to the collectors! Thanks, DNT+!

Installing DNT+ is similar to Adblock Plus for the Firefox, Chrome and Chromium web browsers. For Internet Explorer, goto www.abine.com and follow the instructions.

HTTPS Everywhere. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has been at the forefront of protecting the Internet from falling under the control of government and corporations. They are the front line soldiers who patrol and protect the Internet from those who would squelch free speech. They provide an add-on called HTTPS Everywhere. Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is a protocol for web browsers. However, the protocol is inherently insecure. Any hacker with a micron of talent can capture the dataflow of HTTP and read it. Which is why banks and retailers use HTTPS, which merges the HTTP with Secure Socket Layer (SSL). HTTPS encrypts your browsing with a decryption key provided for the web server and your computer, the web client. The folks over at EFF decided that HTTPS should be everywhere. For example, a Google search should use HTTPS. (You can try it without installing HTTPS Everywhere. From your web browser -even Internet Explorer- goto https//www.google.com.) So EFF is providing for free an addon to Chrome, Chromium and Firefox that will encrypt most of your browsing. Goto www.eff.org/https-everywhere/. Download it for your browser of choice today! (If you click the link, you'll notice that it's an https link.) (Not available for Internet Explorer.)

Well, there you have it. With these three add-ons, you'll arrest the online stalkers and better enjoy being on the web. Learn, shop, connect with confidence.

As always, feel free to contact me with any of your computer related issues.

--Joseph