4 Must Have Browser Addons To Protect Your Online Privacy

By Sanix | February 24, 2012 | 1 Comment

Privacy is a major concern for everyone who uses the Internet. Since Internet is a shared medium, there are a lot of ways the privacy of a person can be unfold. Whether you are browsing or using an Internet service, almost every website and service operating in the sphere of Internet tracks your movements and other data related to you. The data can range from your browsing habits to your personal information like email address, location etc.

Most of the websites on the Internet have tracking software installed on the web pages. Although the information sent to the website owner can be harmless and may help better serve your needs, it is not always the case. If you are also concerned about your privacy over the Internet, here are a few tools and services which can help you in preventing the websites and services from tracking you online. You will become completely anonymous while browsing the Internet.

Do Not Track Plus

Do Not Track Plus is my favorite tool which I am currently using for my online privacy. Since I use Firefox as my primary browser, I have installed “Do Not Track Plus” as a Firefox Add-on. It is also compatible with Google Chrome and Internet Explorer. Do Not Track Plus can prevent tracking of social buttons, ad networks and other tracking companies. The thing I like about Do Not Track Plus is that it shows the information about tracking website in a pop-up when its toolbar button is clicked. Do Not Track Plus protects your online privacy from more than 600 trackers. The tracker database is updated regularly to combat new emerging trackers.

Download Do Not Track Plus for Firefox

Ghostery

Ghostery is another useful tool which can do the same job as Do Not Track Plus. Ghostery is compatible with Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, Opera and Internet Explorer. It also supports mobile version (iOS). When a website is opened, Ghostery will list down all the trackers on the web page on the upper right corner of the browsing window. Ghostery gives you more control over which site to block and which one to allow. You can block the trackers you want and leave others as it is.

Download Ghostery (You can download Ghostery for each browser separately)

Adblock Plus

Adblock Plus is by far the most popular tool for blocking ads. Since most of the trackers are advertisements on the webpages, Adblock Plus can be handy in fighting online privacy issues. Adblock Plus supports Firefox and Google Chrome. Adblock Plus, rather than blocking the tracking of any service, blocks all the advertisements on the webpage. This can be beneficial if you are not interested in the advertisements. This can help improve browsing speed as most of the Javascript and advertisements are blocked.

Download Adblock Plus

NoScript

Most of the tracking is done through Javascript. If you disable Javascript in your browser, most of the privacy issues can be solved but the problem is that it is not always possible to disable Javascript and use all the functionality of the website. NoScript is a Firefox add-on which can prove very beneficial in this regard. NoScript does one thing and does it very well. It prevents Javascript and Flash based contents from running on a webpage without your permission. If you are extra cautious about your privacy, NoScript can be the tool of your choice.

I hope these tools will make your life easier and will help you fight against hidden leakage of privacy. Which tools are you currently using for protecting your privacy?

Image credit: alancleaver_2000

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Sanix is a technology enthusiast and loves tweaking Microsoft products. In addition to MakeTechEasier, he contributes regularly to Technize.com and Technize.netHow to Install A Minimal (And Non-Bloated) Ubuntu On Your Old LaptopRandom PostKnowing Your Linux System Via the Command Line John

Good list. I’ve been a big fan of DNTP (your #1). It’s my main add-on I use for this for now. 
Seems to work really well so far.

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Chrome 15 overtakes IE8 as world's most popular browser

Google Chrome 15 was the world's most used web browser version during the last full week of November, new statistics have revealed.

The 15th iteration of Google's browser achieved 23.6 per cent of all web traffic, edging out Internet Explorer 8 for the first time which brought in 23.5 per cent

Mozilla's Firefox 8 was in third place with 12 per cent, according to StatCounter, which represents a big drop off from the big two.

This, of course, only accounts for the specific versions of the browser. When everything is grouped together, Internet Explorer still leads the way with about 40 per cent of web traffic.

Businesses embracing Chrome

Google Chrome has benefited from a rapid adoption of the Chrome for Business version launched a year ago, according to StatCounter CEO Aodhan Cullen.

"Chrome 15 overtook IE8 for the first time during the five day working week, in week commencing 5th December.

"It looks as if people favour Chrome on weekends at home but office commercial use has now caught up."

Earlier this week Google unleashed Chrome 16 with multi-user account support.

Chrome overtakes Firefox in global browser stats

Chrome has overtaken Firefox globally for the first time, with analytics company StatsCounter's figures suggesting that Google browser is now leading the IE chasing pack.

Chrome's growth this year has been astounding, and it breezed past Mozilla's Firefox in the UK in the summer.

However, the latest global figures show that this trend has been repeated across the planet – with Chrome now the official number two with a 25.69 per cent market share. That's all the more remarkable considering that Chrome held just 4.66 per cent share of the browser market in November 2009.

Fascinating

"We can look forward to a fascinating battle between Microsoft and Google as the pace of growth of Chrome suggests that it will become a real rival to Internet Explorer globally," said StatCounter CEO Aodhan Cullen.

"Our stats measure actual browser usage, not downloads, so while Chrome has been highly effective in ensuring downloads our stats show that people are actually using it to access the web also."

StatCounter suggests that IE remains hugely dominant in the US with a 50.24 per cent market share – that's up slightly on last year – with Firefox in second on 20 per cent and Chrome on 17.3 per cent.

The UK is a market that seems to be ahead of the curve in browser trends, and it has IE on 42.8 per cent, Chrome on 24.8 per cent and Firefox on 20.6 per cent

In the US Internet Explorer continues to perform strongly and is maintaining market share at 50.66 per cent, up slightly from 50.24 per cent year on year.

Firefox retains second place on 20.09 per cent, down from 26.75 per cent. Chrome is up to 17.3 per cent from 10.89 per cent. Safari is on 10.76 per cent from 10.71 per cent.

TechRadar figures

TechRadar reported on Chrome overtaking IE among its users in October, but IE has inched back ahead in our latest statistics – with a shade under a quarter of the traffic (24.98 per cent) compared to Chrome's 24.16 per cent.

Firefox holds a 21.79 per cent share of TechRadar browser traffic, Safari on 19.04 per cent and the Android browser on 5.67 per cent.

3D Web Browser review

We review 3D Web Browser, a full-screen iPhone net surfing app that turns tabs into the sides of a cube for slick and aesthetic screen switching

It was a fairly quiet event when tabbed browsing came to our desktops, but a damn important one. No one just has a single web page open any more, and the ability to flick seamlessly between them has become as essential to web browsers as background apps are to the iPhone.

Although Safari does manage tabs quite well on the iPhone’s native browser, there’s always been a distinct sensation of peeping at the Internet through a letterbox when surfing on the small touchscreen. Tabs aren’t quite at your fingertips, either, so it’s no wonder developers are always looking for new methods of putting the iPhone online.

3D Web Browser isn’t exactly what you’d call “feature rich,” but the features it does have are very carefully selected and very useable. It’s still very much a tabbed browser, but it doesn’t treat the tabs as pages, so much as the sides of a cube - or a polyhedron, to be a little more accurate.

Each tab is quickly accessed by tapping the soft button in the lower-left corner, which brings up 'back' and 'forward' arrows. Although when talking about a web browser, perhaps 'next' and 'previous' might be a better definition.

Tapping either button rotates the three-dimensional shape around which the tabs are built, so you can quickly - and mightily attractively, it should be noted - switch between multiple open web pages. In essence, this is no real difference to any other form of tabbed browser, but it feels very immediate and is a pleasure to use.

The lack of required buttons also leaves more screen real estate for actual browsing, too. It might only be a half a centimetre of extra web page, but it feels like a lot when browsing on such a small screen. The additional buttons, such as Home, Back, Forward and Bookmarks are accessed in the same way as the cube; a soft button in the lower right corner reveals the controls when they are actually needed.

As a browser the app also performs very neatly. It’s restricted to the landscape orientation, but this isn’t the limitation it might sound like. There’s no grating number crunching going on in the background as it tries to flip the screen around when you’re not holding the handset perfectly straight, and you don’t need to muck around with rotation lock if you’re using the iPhone bed.

The pages load fast and accurately, and it’s not constantly refreshing pages when switching between the web browser and other applications – something Safari has a nasty habit of doing.

All in all, 3D Web Browser presents itself not a feature-packed app, but a refined and slick one. It sheds a lot of weight seen in similar applications and focuses instead on its core purpose - web browsing. That’s no bad thing, as far as we’re concerned.

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Amazon Silk browser is the ultimate cache converter

Amazon announced this week the arrival of the Amazon Kindle Fire – its first ever assault on the burgeoning Android tablet market – and along with it a new mobile web browser called Silk.

The Silk browser is, according to Amazon, a 'split browser' which uses Amazon's cloud service to speed up the web on a mobile device.

The browser is both on the Kindle Fire and the Amazon EC2 (elastic computing cloud), which should make for a faster web experience – as it takes into account things like network conditions, page complexity and the location of any cached content.

Working with its cloud service the browser can, according to Amazon, request all website content simultaneously with EC2, without overwhelming the mobile device processor or impacting battery life.

Revolutionary browser

Speaking about Amazon Silk, Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, said: "Kindle Fire introduces a revolutionary new web browser called Amazon Silk.

"We refactored and rebuilt the browser software stack and now push pieces of the computation into the AWS cloud. When you use Silk - without thinking about it or doing anything explicit - you're calling on the raw computational horsepower of Amazon EC2 to accelerate your web browsing."

For the moment the Silk browser is only available on the Amazon Kindle Fire, but there's no doubt that we will see the service come to more devices soon.

For more information on the new browser, go to www.amazon.com/silk - warning, the company goes into quite a lot of detail about latency within TCP connections, learning algorithms and multiplexing protocols.

YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u7F_56WhHk

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Amazon's Silk browser en route to other devices?

Amazon has been on a URL shopping spree, splashing out on over 500 new domain names to add to its arsenal - including among them amazonsilkforandroid.com, amazonsilkformac.com and amazonsilkforpc.com.

Catchy dot coms they may not be, but the new URLs certainly suggest that Amazon's Kindle Fire browser, Silk, could be making its way on to other devices in the future.

It's no guarantee - Amazon may just be babysitting the domains so no one else can nab them, particularly given that the purchases were made through MarkMonitor, a brand protection agency - but it's an interesting proposition, and one that makes a modicum of sense.

Silky smooth

Announced yesterday, Silk is currently only on the Kindle Fire tablet, and uses a nifty combo of caching and the cloud to make web browsing super speedy and less power intensive for the tablet itself.

If these new URLs are to be believed, we could see this web capability come to other Android tablets and smartphones, as well as to the desktop PC and Mac computers.

For the time being though, we'd settle for Amazon to bring Silk to the UK on the Kindle Fire - a UK release date and pricing is nowhere to be seen.

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