Spend any amount of time online and there is a high chance that some of the web sites you visit track information about you. Cookies, scripts and other techniques can be used monitor how web users behave online and build up a profile.
This may well be information you would prefer not to share, and Ghostery is a browser add-on that can be used to detect, analyse and block any tracking of your online activities.
Ghostery is available for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome and Safari – although the IE version is rather more limited than the version available for other browsers – and it can reveal a great deal of information about the web sites you visit.
Turning the tables on the trackers, Ghostery enables you to find out exactly which companies are tracking you via the web sites you visit and provides you with any opportunity to find out more about these companies.
Click the Ghostery icon and you can see a list of all of the tracking components found on the current page. You can then click through to find out more about the associated company and opt to block any tracing elements you do not feel comfortable with.
You are granted control over your web use tracking on a site by site basis, or on a company wide basis. You may decide that there are some tracking companies or ad brands that you would always like to block, and this can be configured in advance so you don’t have to keep blocking the same tracking components on site after site.
If you value your privacy, or just want to use the web on your terms, Ghostery is a valuable tool – although this is not so true for Internet Explorer users. You can find out more and download a copy of this free browser add-on by paying a visit to the Ghostery review page.
This article originally appeared at softwarecrew.co.uk
