How to stop search engines from tracking you
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Vivaldi doesn’t track you. However, some search engines can track every search you do. Here’s how to stop that.
Click here to see the full blog post
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I think that in some search engines it is impossible to avoid tracking, in all those that keep an online history, tracking is inevitable.
Only private search engines can guarantee it, preferably those that come from the EC and therefore are obliged to comply with European privacy regulations. -
Now that you’ve switched to a privacy focused search engine you’re already half way there. You only gotta take care of your ISP now, which can look up what you’ve searched, what sites you visited, what content you streamed, if you had some p2p connections going on, &c. Good luck out there!
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@luetage , to start using an alternative DNS, for example Quad9, apart from a VPN service. The latter, if it is only for anonymous browsing, it can serve free ProtonVPN, which, although it only offers 3 servers in its free version, has no data volume limit, no logs and double encryption at the military level.
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Thanks for the information.
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@Catweazle said in How to stop search engines from tracking you:
using an alternative DNS, for example Quad9
Recently i discovered that my VPN has developed a DNS leak on one or two of my regular global servers [they used to be fine]. For the several months this year that i'd abandoned V for FF-Nightly such events were no problem coz i use FF's DoH facility [chromium/Vivaldi really must do this!], but after returning to V with its sad lack of DoH, i was exposed. My VPN provider has been tardy to respond to this recent fault, so i decided to deploy my own workaround. The other night i installed
dnscrypt-proxy
on Tower, & configured it to use a Quad9 DoH no-log DNS server. So now i don't care quite as much as before that my VPN occasionally drops their DNS ball, nor that chromium & Vivaldi remain primitive in this security/privacy aspect. -
@JohnConnorBear said in How to stop search engines from tracking you:
Basically
ALLmany, if not most, "free" services are actually payed with registered information about your behavior.FTFY
There do exist plenty of free services & products which do not collect, let alone track and/or sell, user information. Because monetization is not a goal of many of these projects, many also do not include any advertising, including non-targeted ads.
Due to the violent antipathy for tracking that is so prevalent, one might expect such services to receive greater support than they do. People's capacity for cognitive dissonance, however, has relieved me of such a notion. I just provide them with the meager support I'm able to provide directly, and in a few cases indirectly by assisting their users and small advocacy efforts when the opportunity is present.
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@JohnConnorBear said in How to stop search engines from tracking you:
DoH is available on Chromium based browsers, including Vivaldi, through an "hidden" option.
chrome://flags/#dns-over-httpsNo, sorry but untrue universally -- it remains unavailable for Linux:
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@JohnConnorBear If you're writing generically, for generic users, then i agree. If you're instead responding to me specifically [which it kinda sorta looks like you are, given you replied to me explicitly], then i disagree, in that:
- My earlier post https://forum.vivaldi.net/post/372274 specifically indicated i use a VPN, ergo neither my nasty fascist misgovernment nor my ISP theoretically get sighting of my data [afaik?].
- Same post specifically stated that i have installed & deployed
dnscrypt-proxy
--> fyi: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dnscrypt-proxy
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As I said on other occasions, the basic problem is not that Google and others track my activities "to improve the service", but that they sell these data to third parties, whose conditions and privacy I do not know and are not necessarily honest. This is not only an obvious privacy flaw, but a major security hole.
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This thread has become ouroborosific.
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@Steffie you’re welcome
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@JohnConnorBear , naturally I don't believe this "to improve the service" or "to" improve the user experience "of Google and MS, more than in an ironic sense.
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@catweazle: google says it does not sell your data to third parties. can you keep me some links which say otherwise please
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@ultraviolet said in How to stop search engines from tracking you:
@catweazle: google says it does not sell your data to third parties. can you keep me some links which say otherwise please
Some links
https://www.consumerwatchdog.org/privacy-technology/how-google-and-amazon-are-spying-you
https://www.sciencealert.com/a-tech-expert-says-we-should-stop-using-google-chrome
https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/7006196/google-location-tracking-history-map-turn-off-how/
https://securityboulevard.com/2019/11/does-google-read-your-email/etc.
https://vivaldi.com/es/blog/google-return-to-not-being-evil/ -
Dunno what it might mean, but hey, heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey, out there on the lake, i just saw a bloke in a leather jacket on skis being towed by a boat, & i'll be damned if he didn't just jump clear over a shark.
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@JohnConnorBear , one thing is what Google wants, and another different from what the laws say about monopoly abuse and unfair competition. At this point Google has already received a blow to the teeth on several occasions, at least in the EC
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@JohnConnorBear , you cannot negotiate with Google, of course, but you can stop the abuse that is allowed in the United States. In order for Google to be able to operate in the CE, it has to comply with the CE regulations and laws, like any other commercial product in the CE.
Although the last word will have the user and if people use more and more alternative products to those of Google, which of course there are plenty of, I do not think that Google simply because of the commercial view of losing customers, is going to think very hard about insisting In changes that you predict.
That governments that place the needs of the lobiies before the interests of the people cannot be trusted too much, it goes without saying, but neither can one ignore the mandatory legislation that already exists. -