Community Chat

[MurphiesLaw]

Facebook just announced yet another way it is encroaching on your privacy.Starting soon, the company said on Thursday, it will use information gathered from other websites to figure out the ads that best apply to you.

But, to its credit, Facebook is also offering a way to opt out of its new data-gathering system. Here's how to do so in just two steps.

Step 1: Go to this page from the Digital Advertising Alliance, a consortium of advertising trade groups. There you'll find a list of all the companies that track your browsing to deliver tailored ads. Mostly likely, Facebook is among them.

Find "Facebook Inc." under "Companies Customizing Ads For Your Browser" and check off the checkmark to the right.

[dooBdoo]

Thanks for posting this, MurphiesLaw!

This is a great website and safe to use.

Here's the complete address, for those who don't like clicking on embedded links:

http://www.aboutads.info/choices/

[MurphiesLaw]

Thank you dooBdoo for the link.

[Marp2]

More kudos to Ghostery. Microsoft is the only company that is tailoring advertising for my browser and I don't see ads even from them.

[dooBdoo]

On 6/13/2014 MurphiesLaw said:

Thank you dooBdoo for the link.

You're wecome!

Marp2, another vote for Ghostery. I use these add-ons (some aren't available for all browsers):

AdBlock Edge
AdBlock Plus
Adblock Plus Pop-up Addon
DoNotTrackMe
BetterPrivacy
Ghostery

In addition, those who don't want to be tracked might want to give the DuckDuckGo search engine a try (https://duckduckgo.com/). I like it.

[MomOf4]

AdBlock Plus (Adblockplus,org) eliminates any and all ads from all websites. I love it.

[Marp2]

DooB,

I do a lot of very esoteric research, particularly of a medicolegal nature and just did a couple of recent searches using the recommended DuckDuckGo and was so pleased with the results. Much less commercial and therefore more spot on than the big names. You have probably saved me countless hours of wasted research time. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[MurphiesLaw]

Even though you didn't address me Marp2, I thank you for your recommendation.

[Marp2]

On 6/13/2014 MurphiesLaw said:

Even though you didn't address me Marp2, I thank you for your recommendation.

The thanks should go to dooBdoo. She referenced the search engine a few days ago and I got distracted and forgot until her post today. I did not test DDG for current headline stories and I don't know if it will become my default engine but I will certainly use it first for less obvious searches.

[dooBdoo]

On 6/13/2014 Marp2 said:

DooB,

I do a lot of very esoteric research, particularly of a medicolegal nature and just did a couple of recent searches using the recommended DuckDuckGo and was so pleased with the results. Much less commercial and therefore more spot on than the big names. You have probably saved me countless hours of wasted research time. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Cool! You're welcome. I've been using DuckDuckGo for a good while, now, and I'm highly pleased with it. (And they're constantly improving it, too. Great development community.)