How to stop Firefox and Google from spying on me.
 

Hi how do I stop Firefox and Google from spying on me in OSX.

Let me give you and example: whenever I enter an addresse say macosxhints.com, I notice that firefox always connects through
www.google-analytics.com or ssl.google-analytics.com. Blogs
have confirmed that Google is spying on me, and the way that
they handle this isn windows firefox is by

a)modifying windows host file to reflect

google--analytics as 127.0.0.1.

thanks.

PS Here is the page I am refrencing if you are interested.
http://labnol.blogspot.com/2005/11/p...-tracking.html

That's not spying on you, that's the website trying to see how many visitors it has.

Website owners use it as a helpful tool to see what pages are popular, and find where people are getting stuck or leaving.

It's similar to (but more advanced that) those hit counter things.

In other words: http://www.zymic.com/forum/index.php...26&mode=linear

You can add the "Customize Google" Firefox extension, which will block Google Analytics cookies and perform other privacy functions.

http://www.customizegoogle.com/

Or just change firefox's preferences -> privacy -> Accept 3rd party cookies to "ask every time" then use reasonable judgement about wether to deny (doubleclick et al), allow for session (google) and allow until expires (sites you log in to).

And there is a good watchdog to many apps that try to call home or connect to something and in many cases block these *helpful tools*.
LittleSnitch
http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html

Come on guys this is ridiculous, on my windows computer, I would jsut have to modify the windows hosts file so that

a)google-analytics redirects to 127.0.0.1.

Are we trying to say that I cannot do tha ton a mac?

This is seriously ridiculous. I know through the terminal APP, that I can modify the osx hosts file to redirect , but its not as simple as in windows where its just a word file that you add to .

... as can any bit of malware running on your machine.

/private/etc/

modify the hosts file

As a web designer that uses Google Analytics I just really quickly want to make it clear that we as web masters are not "spying" on you. We want to know what pages people are visiting and how they find us. It helps us improve our websites.

Granted if you are on site xyz.com and click a link to size abc.com - abc.com will be able to see that you came from xyz.com. BUT, if you are on site xyz.com and enter abc.com manually into your address bar it won't show xyz.com as a referrer. It only tracks actual click-through not exactly where you were before.

And if your concern is your IP address being available to the web master. I can find more information about you from your license plate then your IP address.

Beyond that analytic collects operating system version and browser type... Not exactly classified stuff since you told us in this post that you use Mac OS X and Firefox.

Now... if you really are that concerned schwartze is correct
- Open Terminal.app
- cd /etc [return]
- sudo vi hosts [return]
- enter your password
- press i to enter insert mode
- make your changes
- press esc to exit insert mode
- press :
- type wq! [return]
- Done

No that does not work in Leopard or Snow Leopard. I have 10.6 snow leopard. PART of the answer lies in the fact that you have to turn on the terminal app then write: man hosts

Then you have to somehow write

www.google-analytics 127.0.0.1 , but when I write that terminal goes crazy.

Well guess what I don't like :

google-analytics.com
www.gooogle-analytics.com
ssl.google-analytics.com
www.doubleclick.net
ad.doubleclick.net
etc.

not spying on me , but rather I don't like them correlating my ip addresse with every single one of my movements on the web combining it search
metadata corelated with my ip addresse correlated with my gmail account corelated with my ip adresse stored on come server in Mountain View California until 2047 easily per usable by a host of people that I do not want searching for my private info.

God doesnt anyone esle find it creepy that someone knows that much data about you and keeps it somewhere never to forget it.

Windows _should_ be easier to make protective changes. But, you can make a similar adjustment to the OS X hosts file, and you normally need the terminal, or one of the unix editor tools to change that file, or a good GUI tool such as Text Wrangler will also do the trick.

Folks here are simply offering you alternate points-of-view - as Google is not (as you phrase it) spying on you. It's just using a standard marketing tool, and not personal. Your blog link reflects that position (unless you are reading different words than I see), and not the privacy attack that you make it out to be.

Also, you could try to be a little less paranoid about the issue - which may also help :D

It does work in Leopard - I use this method to block various sites myself.

Entering 'man hosts' brings up a help page describing the hosts file. You need root privileges to modify that file, so you need to log in as an administrator then use sudo to edit that file with your favourite Terminal-based editor (e.g. vi or emacs).

For example (where $> is the command prompt):

$> cd /private/etc
$> sudo emacs hosts
Password:

At this point you enter your admin password (which will not be echoed to the screen), then you'll get a warning about sudo use if you've never used it before, then emacs will start and show the contents of your hosts file in the terminal window. Enter www.google-analytics.com 127.0.0.1 on a new line then press Ctrl-x Ctrl-s to save, followed by Ctrl-x Ctrl-c to exit. Job done. (I'm not sure if you need to log out for the OS to read the updated hosts file)

In case you're wondering why it's so "difficult" to do, it's to prevent malware from being able to easily modify that file and thus re-directing you to dodgy sites unawares.

EDIT:

You don't like being spied on by Google, yet have a G-Mail account!?!

I am not sure why you are making it so complicated.

1) Go to folder
2) drag file hosts to favorite text editor
3) Authenticate

I just did it in Snow Leopard.

No need for the terminal.

Hi , how do I go to folder? (Keep in mind, I am a 14+ year user of windows, and a just over 2 months user of mac. I know how to use MSDOS, and precious little about Linux commands on terminal.app).


It was noted, by another user that I am using gmail.Well, I am slowly taking my privacy back slowly one by one.
step 1. remove google-anaytics/doubleclick from my browser.
step 2: change or recache all google listings.
step 3: have my own domain and get a domain server company in my city so I can host my own email and drop homtail gmail who have no expectation of privacy. :-)

Success! Eatswithfingers instruction worked perfectly.

(just remember to put a a space after cd -->cd /private/etc).

You could also use one of the many proxy sites like proxify.com when browsing if you wanna be really paranoid.

Glad it worked out for you. I think my message came off as an attack on you because you went straight into defensive mode and didn't notice I posted the instructions on how to do what you wanted. (The same as Easwithfingers just using vi instead of emacs).

I was just trying to make the point that Google (and other companies like it) have information on millions of people. They do not have time to look at your information.

I have worked for some pretty major online companies with hundreds of thousands of accounts with various details like email addresses, phone numbers and whatever else.. Sure I had the access to look at the data but there was just too dang much, why would I? What would I do with the info?

Unless Google for some reason needed to investigate the activity of your IP address directly they will never look at the info (not only by policy, but also because the odds of someone randomly looking at the info attached to your IP specifically are astronomical)...

I say "your IP address" and not "you" because the only company that can definitively connect your IP address to you as a person is your ISP, and they do not need Google's Database or anyone else's to track your online activity, all of your internet activity flows through them, they already have the info... Way more then Google has... And, if you're in the US there may be laws coming to make them store it... then it will make the data Google has seem pitiful.

You got what you wanted, and in the end that's what is important - I am happy for you. The only reason I post this final word on it is so if others stumble across this post when searching for "protection from spying" or whatever else they see both sides and can make an informed decision.

Do you know why I personally don't care? The bits of information so many people try to hide online (name, age, location, gender, address or whatever) are all discoverable by someone following me around in person... More likely to be stalked by someone in my own city then someone online. If I don't hide the info offline, why bother online?

With things like Google Analytics... Every store I shop at has records of what I bought and with what payment method.. same thing really.

But again, glad it worked out. Internet security/privacy is a choice and I respect your right to make that choice. I just wanted to make sure you were informed. In this particular area of security/privacy I am of the opposite camp but I am still a privacy advocate for some things.

Hi I think you can also ad 127.0.0.1 googleadservices.com

I don't understand the instructions given by schwartze or Eatswithfingers.
Where are the commands being entered into?
Go to what folder? (schwartze)

The folder is the /private/etc folder, and is normally hidden.
Use the Go menu from the finder, then choose Go to Folder. Enter /private/etc
You'll see the hosts file there, in the etc folder

If you want to try the commands, you enter those in your Terminal, which is in your Applications/Utilities folder

What are you doing that you want to hide from the rest of the world.

Actually there was a good answer few posts back
”It's just using a standard marketing tool, and not personal.”
I do not like to be a part of any marketing and specially of the one that after some time will cater the results of my search according to my previous interests. I do not care if somebody reads the information that have been gathered, but I am against the information being gathered at all and used for marketing. Google is great search engine, but it is a monster business also.

1. Hi Vortexboy if up till now you cannot figure thing out please tell me.

2. I am raising this dead thread because of this whole Google browser privacy thingy , as denoted by this article.

http://www.macrumors.com/2012/08/09/...mvention-case/


3.Please inform me exactly how the privacy compromise happened because I cannot understand it. Most importantly tell me whether these instructions protect me from Google's anal invasion. I would think so because is double click is diverted to 127.0.0.1 then there no information being transferred.

You mean "doubleclick.com". "double click" means hitting the mouse button twice.

All that does is block requests to doubleclick.com. Google (along with just about everyone else) is watching you.

Ever notice that each search link on Google actually goes to their server first? Then to the real destination?

If you really want to keep things to yourself: avoid the search engines, disable javascript, use your own mail server, or in general just stay off the internet. otherwise accept that unless you log in to something you are just one in a crowd of about a billion.

Google is not spying on YOU. No one at Google is ever going to sit at a computer and say "show me what student13 has been doing". Google has absolutely no interest in what you as an individual have been doing.

What they will do is say "give me a list of people who have searched for "cheese" or visited sites about cheese (or sent emails through Gmail with the word "cheese"). And you will be one of the millions of people in that list. And this request would be automatic, as the data is too large and there are too many requests.

Then, they can put adverts about cheese in pages you visit and gather data about how many people are interested in cheese. And this is what makes them money, as the cheesemakers will pay for the adverts and the data.

In short: it's not all about you. It's about the cheese.

Excellent explanation! And the quote of the day.

Thanks, benwiggy.