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> you'll be tracked far less Citation needed. Last I checked, most news sites still throw dozens of ad networks and tracking beacons on their pages. If they u

> you'll be tracked far less Citation needed. Last I checked, most news sites still throw dozens of ad networks and tracking beacons on their pages. If they use Google Analytics, Google Fonts, Google Maps, or other Google web APIs, Google still tracks (or has the capability to) many of your movements across the web. I'm not against making incremental changes to my own life, but there's no clear value in doing this yet.

ldh 7y ago
You don't search the web using news sites.
danShumway 7y ago
Decentraleyes and Ublock Origin will block the vast majority of tracking beacons you encounter from FANG sites. I'm not personally as worried about being tracked by Google APIs, but UMatrix will still block the majority of them -- even Youtube embeds and many Google fonts. That means you get to choose which sites are allowed to load those APIs, which is a huge improvement over just giving Google access to everything. Honestly, while fingerprinting is still a huge concern, blocking the majority of Google's tracking on 3rd-party sites is pretty easy, since Google tracking is served from consistent domains. The remaining pain points are stuff like reCaptcha and AMP, which are obviously a big problem, but are not used universally enough to erase the privacy gains you'll get by switching off of Gmail and Google search. If you're already running a (good) adblocker, you will genuinely be tracked less if you switch off of Google. There are ways to mess that up and erase those gains (cough running stock Android with default settings cough), but it's very feasible for most tech-literate people to reduce Google tracking right now.
alasdair_ 7y ago
At the moment I use DDG for search, Firefox, privacy badger extension and a good vpn as well as keeping a separate browser for facebook or google sites. I switched from android to ios because I preferred Apple’s stance on privacy. There is lots more that could be done but small, incremental changes do add up over time.

ldh 7y ago

You don't search the web using news sites.

danShumway 7y ago

Decentraleyes and Ublock Origin will block the vast majority of tracking beacons you encounter from FANG sites. I'm not personally as worried about being tracked by Google APIs, but UMatrix will still block the majority of them -- even Youtube embeds and many Google fonts. That means you get to choose which sites are allowed to load those APIs, which is a huge improvement over just giving Google access to everything. Honestly, while fingerprinting is still a huge concern, blocking the majority of Google's tracking on 3rd-party sites is pretty easy, since Google tracking is served from consistent domains. The remaining pain points are stuff like reCaptcha and AMP, which are obviously a big problem, but are not used universally enough to erase the privacy gains you'll get by switching off of Gmail and Google search. If you're already running a (good) adblocker, you will genuinely be tracked less if you switch off of Google. There are ways to mess that up and erase those gains (cough running stock Android with default settings cough), but it's very feasible for most tech-literate people to reduce Google tracking right now.

alasdair_ 7y ago

At the moment I use DDG for search, Firefox, privacy badger extension and a good vpn as well as keeping a separate browser for facebook or google sites. I switched from android to ios because I preferred Apple’s stance on privacy. There is lots more that could be done but small, incremental changes do add up over time.