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How Do I Keep My Privacy While Using Google?
hubert.lepicki writes "I use Google all the time. I keep two GMail tabs open when I'm online (one is private, another is a corporate account), I use Google search, and recently I switched to the Chromium browser. Google's services are fast, easy to use and usually reliable. At the same time, I know Google is tracking everything I do; I can see it in search results or their ads on web pages, which tend to match my interests. After the recent post by Mozilla's community director suggesting Bing has a better privacy policy (a response to questionable comments from Google CEO Eric Schmidt), I started to... 'google' ways of keeping my private data safe while browsing and using Google services. The results weren't very helpful, so I ask you, Slashdotters: how do I stay anonymous to Google while using their services?"
Why not use Tor for search queries? Your gmail is obviously a different story, because using Tor wouldn't make much difference for Google. So set Opera or Chrome to use Tor, and you're set for that part.
Open two different browsers, say Chrome and Firefox. Use one to log in to your email, but nothing else. In the other, never log in to Google services. It certainly doesn't solve the whole problem, but it is trivially easy and has no serious drawbacks.
Same IP address at the same time...
You can't take the sky from me...
"If you browse with ads, however, prepare for some really bizarre ones."
No problem. I Googled "blocking Google Ads" then set Firefox accordingly. :)
http://www.lancelhoff.com/blocking-google-adsense-ads/
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Here are some addons I use in Firefox that might be of use for some: CookieSafe, permanently ban google in specific from setting cookies (for example): https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2497 Ghostery, See who's tracking your web browsing and block them automaticly. (trackers like google analytics, quantcast, etc) https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9609 Torbutton,Provides a button to securely and easily enable or disable the browser's use of Tor. It is currently the only addon that will safely manage your Tor browsing to prevent IP address leakage, cookie leakage, and general privacy attacks. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2275
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/EU_social_network_spy_system_brief%2C_INDECT_Work_Package_4%2C_2009 .coms. :)
Is just what IP tracking is for. You can have all the IM and browsers you want, over time the database logs 'you' and your friends once a set of "dictionary" words are tripped.
Every search and IM is now "Signals intelligence" to the gov and marketing to the
Or you can sell the 'data' to the gov too while running a marketing front
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
They do have extra info - flash cookies. I can safely bet 99% of you never remember to clear them, and for example Gmail/Google's services explicitly uses them to match IP changes (or use of proxies) with a single computer.
Funny thing is their ToS "Google may store cookies" probably covers flash cookies too, even if everybody would think they wouldn't use such tactics. And who said Google is not evil?
Blocking Flash should be the default for anyone concerned about privacy, anyway. And with the BetterPrivacy Firefox add-on can in addition clear your Flash cookies between browser sessions, so even for things like YouTube where you absolutely need Flash the tracking ability is at least reduced (of course you'll have to regularly close the browser for it to be effective).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.