Find Out What Kinds of Breadcrumbs You’re Dropping – Visit the Cover Your Tracks Website
Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Cover Your Tracks Website
When you visit a website, it’s like asking a store for something. Your computer, tablet, or phone, sends a “Hey, can I see this?” message. But here’s the thing — a lot of websites have sneaky code that makes your device automatically ask other, hidden stores for things too.
These hidden stores are most often ad companies and trackers, and every time your device asks them for something, it’s giving away little clues about you. Think of it like dropping breadcrumbs: your time zone, what kind of phone or computer you have, and what programs you’re using. Some of this stuff is necessary for the website to work right, like telling it what language to show you. But a lot of it is just being scooped up by these same ad and tracking companies.
A few breadcrumbs might not seem like a big deal. But when these companies gather up all those little clues, they can build a pretty good picture of who you are. They can guess things like what you like to buy, where you live, what you believe, and how much money you make. And as long as they can connect all those clues back to you, they can keep following you around the internet.
They do this by using things called “cookies” and “browser fingerprinting.” Cookies are like little tags they stick on your device to remember you, but cookies are usually easy to delete.
Browser fingerprinting is sneakier; it’s like figuring out who you are based on all the unique details of your device and how you use it. So basically, even if you delete your cookies and try to hide, they can still often figure out it’s you.
Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Cover Your Tracks website gives you a chance to see how well your browser protects you from tracking and fingerprinting…
Here’s what EFF has to say…
Test your browser to see how well you are protected from tracking and fingerprinting:
How does tracking technology follow your trail around the web, even if you’ve taken protective measures? Cover Your Tracks shows you how trackers see your browser. It provides you with an overview of your browser’s most unique and identifying characteristics.
Only anonymous data will be collected through this site.
Want to learn more about tracking? Read how it works with our guide.
Do you want to see what kinds of breadcrumbs you’re dropping as you interact with the websites you visit? Visit EFF’s Cover Your Tracks website right now.
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