Who is tracking you online?
How much do you love online content? So much you pay for everything you can? Or do you, like the overwhelming majority of internet users, accept advertising and tracking as a way of life?
The adage goes “if you’re not paying you’re the product,” and in the internet services and media era, this is truer than ever. Finding out who and what is tracking you isn’t easy, but there are a number of sites and browser extensions that give you a little more clarity. Here are some of the best.
1. Panopticlick
Panopticlick is one of the first sites to check out. Panopticlick analyzes your current browser setup, including add-ons and extensions, to measure just how many trackers are tracing your browser session.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) research project takes it one step further by detailing unique configuration features that make your browser more noticeable amongst tracking data.
How to Use Panopticlick
Head to the Panopticlick site and hit the giant orange “Test Me” button. Wait for the analysis to complete. Remember, you will experience different levels of tracking depending on your list of add-ons and extensions. My browser has several extensions blocking almost all trackers, as you’ll spot in the results below.
2. Am I Unique?
Am I Unique? is a tracker analyzer with a focus on the unique fingerprint your browser broadcasts. Browsers are relatively unique and are frequently used to identify you online.
Am I Unique take a fingerprint of your system and add it to their own database, adding a four-month cookie to your system in the process. You can then head back to the site in a few weeks and examine the changes to your browser fingerprint and if you have become more or less unique.
How to Use Am I Unique?
Head to the Am I Unique site and hit the View My Browser Fingerprint button. Wait for the analysis to complete, then check your results.
3. Disconnect
Disconnect features in many tracker-blocking lists and for a good reason. The browser extension blocks over 2,000 individual trackers from following you around the internet. Not only that but by blocking such a vast amount of trackers, websites actually load faster up 27 percent faster, according to Disconnect.
How to Use Disconnect
Using 'Disconnect' is extremely easy. First, head to the Disconnect site and hit the “Get Disconnect” button. The disconnect is currently available for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera (download links below). Once you install Disconnect, head to a website, and open the extension. The drop-down panel shows you the entire range of trackers currently jotting down your browser session.
4. Tractography
Tractography is your third visual tracker-guide, this time with a more interactive take. Tractography, developed by the Tactical Technology Collective, is an open-source project aiming to “lift the veil on the global tracking industry” by visualizing the vast array of trackers following you around the internet.
You can use Tractography to check:
- Which companies are tracking you.
- The countries hosting the servers of those tracking companies.
- Countries hosting the servers of the website you’re viewing.
- The countries hosting the network infrastructure required to access those media servers and tracking companies.
- Further information on how tracking companies handle your data with regards to their privacy policies.
Overall, Trackography is a great visual resource if you want to understand more about the flow of data tracking around the globe, and where you fit into it.
How to Use Tractography
Head to the Tractography site. Select your host nation. Next, select a media website you want to connect to. Connection lines will immediately spread from your host nation, illustrating the path your data takes, as well as the multiple locations you had no idea your data was traveling through.
