PC World:
A free new tool released on Thursday was built specifically to address many of the concerns raised in that study and to go well beyond what standard private browsing modes can do. It’s called Do Not Track Plus, and it works seamlessly with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari; not only that, but it can increase page load speeds by up to four times, its maker says.
Users can decide at the individual website level whether they want to block or allow tracking. When they do want their activities to remain private, DNT+ blocks a growing list of 580 different tracking technologies and more than 200 tracking companies.
I’ve been using it for a while and it’s a bit scary to see how often and in how many different ways we are being tracked.
Shawn,
Did you notice an increase in page load speeds?
Shawn,
As a blog author, aren’t you worried about loosing revenue from Quantcast if all your users install this extension?
I’m sure the Google Analytics and ComScore Beacon data would be useful to you too.
That would be something for The Loop’s Publisher to answer. But I can see how it would be a concern for various entities.
It’s a trade off between the web surfer and the publisher but I believe the tracking has gotten way out of control. For example, in the three hours since this story was posted, the extension has stopped 2,215 attempts to track me.
To be honest, I haven’t noticed but that’s not the reason why I installed the app.
I installed the Safari Extension and wasn’t at all surprised that The Loop only had two hits: G+ and Google Analytics.
These really don’t bother me and I’d rather Jim and you guys have access to analytics data.
Nice extension, though. how this differs from this solution:
http://www.ghostery.com/
I’ve been using it for the better part of six months now and I’m very happy with it.