Now that Black Friday and the Christmas shopping season have come and gone, now’s a great time to use ‘Track This’ − especially if you do the majority of your shopping online.
Track This is a tool that was released by Mozilla in the summer, which is designed to completely baffle online trackers like Facebook and Google by cleverly manipulating your browsing history. Better still, it’s not just for Firefox users.
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The tool lets you choose between four different online personas: Hypebeast, Filthy Rich, Doomsday and Influencer. Track This will then launch what it calls “100 tabs of pure madness” that reflect the profile you’ve chosen and make it look like you’re somebody else.
I chose Hypebeast as my alter ego and, among many, many other websites I’ve never visited, it launched Kanye West’s online store, the Gucci and In-N-Out Burger sites, and a skateboarding publication.
“You’re being followed across the web through cookies … that remember things like language preferences, sites you’ve visited, or what’s in your shopping cart. That might sound generally fine, but it gets shady when data brokers and advertising networks also use cookies to collect information about your internet habits without your consent,” reads the Mozilla blog that initially introduced Track This to the world.
“That’s why we made Track THIS: to bring that out-of-sight tracking front and center. Step into someone else’s shoe ads for a while by opening up 100 tabs at once.”
Now’s as good a time as any to throw ad trackers off your scent, as they may have learned a lot about you from your Black Friday and Christmas shopping habits.
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It’s worth noting, however, that over time you’ll once again start seeing ads that more accurately reflect your actual interests and browsing habits.
You can try out Track This by following this link.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
