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Hiding From Google
penguinrecorder writes "Google offers Web users a simple trade-off: Let the search giant track a substantial portion of your comings and goings around the Web, and it will offer you a free, superior online experience. Now independent security researcher Moxie Marlinspike is making Web users a counter-offer: take Google's giveaways and keep your privacy too. On Tuesday, Marlinspike launched a service he calls GoogleSharing, a plug-in for Firefox designed to give users access to Google's online offerings while cloaking their identity from the company's data collection tools. By hosting a proxy server with a collection of Google 'identities,' the privacy software will allow users temporarily to route their traffic through another computer that masks their identity by mixing their online actions with those of other users. The system is totally transparent, with no special 'alternative' websites to visit. Your normal work flow should be exactly the same." GoogleSharing only works for those services not requiring a Google login; for the latter, no proxying is done.
They've had an opt out option for a long time.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
In Google we trust. In Moxie Marlinspike who wants to be in a position to collect all our Google non-logged-in content... nope.
"Instead of sending your private information to Google directly, use my awesome proxy server to send your private information to Google anonymously. I promise I will not snoop any more than Google does!"
www.optimizegoogle.com Tick most stuff, especially remove click tracking.
There, now Google knows what I search for, but never which link I clicked.
Is it me, or has Google started to slide in the media towards away from its 'Don't Be Evil' policy? Personally, I think they operate well within moral bounds, but to a lot of major networks, blogs, and news aggregates, the opposite seems to be opines.
In principle, most want their usage statistics retained for a short-while, if at all. Most prefer their statistics only confided with first channel of contact as well. Are people considering that these mass usage statistics may comprise some of the magic that makes their platform so successful and useful? Continual refinement due to constant sources of usage information, IMO, seems to be working great for them. The naysayers neigh, but until I see a genuine effort by other companies to be as philanthropic, open-source friendly, charitable, and hospitable, I will shelve my skepticism and contempt for their nosiness in hopes of a continually great service.
How much would people complain if search became a pay-per-search model? If all those in favor of eliminating usage-statistics completely had their way, Ad-Words and dynamic advertising content would be out, and these search giants would be looking for another form of revenue. Something to think about...
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Google runs an ad network because it makes money. They still honor their "Don't be evil" promises, but they've got to do some user tracking because that makes ads more valuable. If you took advertising away from Google... how would they make money? Would anybody pay Google to not show ads to them?
Not really...Google just offers you a unified experience. Bing has better Travel and Maps search. Yahoo has a generally better mail UI/client, as well as a huge database of Q&A. Ask has better contextual search and a butler. 30 Boxes is a better calendar Flickr is far better than Picasa, and has a better community Zimbra is just plain better than pretty much anything that Google Docs has to offer (which isn't much) Wordpress is more advanced, feature-rich, and easier to use than Blogger Netvibes is a lot less buggy than Google Reader, and provides a better interface (Please note, these are the general consumer products. Many of the business services and tools are far better than the competition) But, most people are lazy and would rather just go to google.com.
Grammar Lesson: you're is a contraction of "you are"; your means you possess something; yore means days gone by.
Download, install, properly configure Tor:
https://www.torproject.org/
Certainly you should choose an open source and free operating system to
increase your security/privacy: http://www.distrowatch.com/
Use one of the many tools available to build your own Linux liveCD/DVD/USB
with Tor installed/configured and yank out all of your HDDs or unplug them
while using Tor via Linux liveCD/DVD/USB, then while running Tor:
Scroogle SSL:
https://ssl.scroogle.org/
and for mail:
Safe-Mail:
No cookies, no script, no java, no flash required!
https://www.safe-mail.net/
In the words of Woody Woodpecker:
Hah ha ha HAH ha, Hah ha ha HAH ha, HAHAHAHHAHAHHAAH!
Fuck you corporations, fuck you snoopers, I do it MY WAY.
I offer the same service - and more. I'll route your google/msn/yahoo/windows live/banking/ebay through tor for you. You can inspect the code for my tor client and proxy (Open Source of course). Hell I'll even offer SSL and HTTPS - both ways. Opt out on the banking data too!