How Do I Keep My Privacy While Using Google?

[henrygrik]

Hi,
"I use Google all the time. 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, how do I stay anonymous to Google while using their services?"

[TheSorrow]

....o-O...?
Proxies?

[AuraTwilight]

Everything on the internet tracks what you do. It's called browser cookies. There's no real way to avoid it, but there's no need to since no human is reading your information. It's just computer generated scripts giving ads that match your search terms.

[shugo_lover]

Annoying adds that get all your info. I think you mean

[Erranty]

If you're using firefox its pretty simple to get rid of your search history.

Tools>Options>Privacy>Show Cookies>Type "Google" into the search bar>delete everything that shows up.

[Kuukai]

There are two different ways Google tracks you, via cookies and via IP. Actually they're trying to get your DNS data too, which is by far worse since they'll see everything in your address bar (kinda like they do with Chrome), but as long as you don't set them as your DNS you're fine.

If you use Firefox's Privacy Mode and a proxy (and you're not stupid and logged into Gmail or something), you should be good as far as I know, but I'm assuming Privacy Mode works as advertised, which might be more than Firefox deserves. It's actually a pretty horrible browser if you care about privacy because any idiot can go into Preferences and see all your passwords in plaintext. Open-source groupthink kills any attempt to change this, though there may be a plugin. While we're on the subject, most browsers tell a website the last site you viewed before going there, which I think should be deemed "too much information" in this day and age... There might be a branch of Firefox made by paranoid people that's exactly what you're looking for, I haven't really cared enough to find an easy solution, I just understand the technology...

So hopefully that helps you. Also they throw out their logs after some number of years, I think....

[TheSorrow]

Reminds me of something i read not so long ago, about someone releasing all the log files from some searcher, AOL i think, and they gave a certain "ID" to whoever used the searcher, and recorded all of the searches made by the user. Basicly, everyone on the internet could see each and every search you made under that service, and though no one would know it was "you" exactly, everyone would know that all those searches were made by a certain someone and could even make a list of all those searches that someone made, thanks to the given ID. I'd say it all relates to this current topic of Google, FireFox and privacy :P

[S1lentOp]

It's actually a pretty horrible browser if you care about privacy because any idiot can go into Preferences and see all your passwords in plaintext.

If you're the kind of person who saves his passwords on his internet browser, then clearly you aren't concerned about the privacy of your information.

There are several things you can do to reduce the chances of being identified while you are on the internet. Some them include: Using the private browsing function in your internet browser, using proxies, disabling cookies, not logging your internet activity in your recent history, or using third-party applications such as Tor. You should be warned though that these practices are not always allowed on certain networks such as on college campuses and they may slow down your internet browsing. There is no ironclad way to protect your identity unless you have a lot of IT know-how, in which case you probably wouldn't have made this thread in the first place, and even then if someone wants to find out who you are badly enough they could do a work-around. For casual browsing though you should be fine with the suggestions listed above. I've also seen a few add-ons for Firefox that are designed for maintain anonymity on browsers like Google, but I don't know how effective they are. There are also services you can pay for that allow you to remain anonymous as well.

[Kuukai]

It's actually a pretty horrible browser if you care about privacy because any idiot can go into Preferences and see all your passwords in plaintext.

If you're the kind of person who saves his passwords on his internet browser, then clearly you aren't concerned about the privacy of your information.

This is the kind of reasoning they use. It assumes that the average user knows enough to make a better decision and that the average person interested in their password would know enough to decode them if there wasn't such an option. I'm not saying that changing this would make anything more "secure," just that in practice the status quo is going to lead to a lot more stolen passwords. It's not like the "save password?" question in Firefox actually informs a user than anyone can just open up a window and see their password, at least not last time I checked...

[S1lentOp]

Yes, but I'm speaking of the act itself of saving your password to your browser.

[Kuukai]

Yep, I completely agree that everything would be safer if everyone didn't save their passwords, or at least used a secured machine and master password of sorts... But since that ideal will never be realized, browsers should really consider the actual end user...

[d5t]

Google is the do no evil company so far... If you want to act like a paranoid person, download Tor and turn your cookies off.

http://www.torproject.org/

[shugo_lover]

Reminds me of something i read not so long ago, about someone releasing all the log files from some searcher, AOL i think, and they gave a certain "ID" to whoever used the searcher, and recorded all of the searches made by the user. Basicly, everyone on the internet could see each and every search you made under that service, and though no one would know it was "you" exactly, everyone would know that all those searches were made by a certain someone and could even make a list of all those searches that someone made, thanks to the given ID. I'd say it all relates to this current topic of Google, FireFox and privacy

Thats crap XP Sense I have Aol oh well not like I'm looking up porn or anything, that would suck though if it gave all your web site acounts with your log in pass attached and everything

[Erranty]

Aol

...That's worse than taking a sledge hammer to your motherboard... Are you trying to get viruses on purpose?

[shugo_lover]

I hate haveing AOL it is so slow D~:< and yeah viruses every were