Cookie and Do not track

LightKnow

[Deleted User] said:

Biil said:

coffeehound said:

If you disable cookies altogether, it will seriously limit what you can actually do on the web.  Another option is to delete them every time you close the browser, but you'll probably soon get fed up with having to sign-in to every site every time

I actually already clear them ... I think it's become OCD ... I visit 3 sites then clear .. if I come of I clear .. if I use social media I clear .. if I log on , I clear and then use another site  😅 Yes am addicted to clearing those cookies 

I'm confused about how contradictory you are about privacy - you clear cookies after 3 websites but then log into social media which in itself is more a privacy issue than cookies. Social media sites know more about your personal information than a cookie does. Once you are logged into social media, cookies don't matter that much, all your usage is tracked against your username anyway and can be used in exactly the same way as cookies are and cannot be deleted. In fact any site you log into such as this one can track all your usage, searches etc and will use that data for marketing purposes.

Your search engine logs your searches against your IP address. Your DNS provider knows exactly what websites you visited and this data is often sold depending on your provider. Your ISP knows exactly who you are and what websites you visit - have you read their privacy policy? They can sell your data to advertisers.

Cookies are old school and the third party tracking cookies are on their way out, Safari and Firefox already block them, Chrome will from next year. Cookies rarely identify you as an individual either.

Your browser itself or anti-virus solutions often refers URL's back to mothership so they can see where you have been on the web.

Advertisers and tracking companies are already many steps ahead of your cookie deletion after 3 websites, all you are doing is making your browsing experience more painful by having to always log on, clicking on cookie notifications, filling out "are you a robot" captcha forms etc without much gain because I assume you already block 3rd party cookies and advertisers and trackers through a browser add-on. So it is just 1st party ones that you accept which are mostly for you benefit and you are deleting those when you have already left a footprint behind bigger than any cookie.

I never use my real information on any social site plus I hardly use them anymore, apart from one and yes am aware what social sites do and have done . I know there's a lot sites that can put your information or data at risk ( I have done this more times than I can count in the past) . Am not perfect but I like to educate myself enough or get information to find ways to improve.

I don't use any browser add on, 
And what do you mean I might left bigger footprint than any cookie ? 

[Deleted User]

Biil said:

Deleted_User said:

Biil said:

coffeehound said:

If you disable cookies altogether, it will seriously limit what you can actually do on the web.  Another option is to delete them every time you close the browser, but you'll probably soon get fed up with having to sign-in to every site every time

I actually already clear them ... I think it's become OCD ... I visit 3 sites then clear .. if I come of I clear .. if I use social media I clear .. if I log on , I clear and then use another site  😅 Yes am addicted to clearing those cookies 

I'm confused about how contradictory you are about privacy - you clear cookies after 3 websites but then log into social media which in itself is more a privacy issue than cookies. Social media sites know more about your personal information than a cookie does. Once you are logged into social media, cookies don't matter that much, all your usage is tracked against your username anyway and can be used in exactly the same way as cookies are and cannot be deleted. In fact any site you log into such as this one can track all your usage, searches etc and will use that data for marketing purposes.

Your search engine logs your searches against your IP address. Your DNS provider knows exactly what websites you visited and this data is often sold depending on your provider. Your ISP knows exactly who you are and what websites you visit - have you read their privacy policy? They can sell your data to advertisers.

Cookies are old school and the third party tracking cookies are on their way out, Safari and Firefox already block them, Chrome will from next year. Cookies rarely identify you as an individual either.

Your browser itself or anti-virus solutions often refers URL's back to mothership so they can see where you have been on the web.

Advertisers and tracking companies are already many steps ahead of your cookie deletion after 3 websites, all you are doing is making your browsing experience more painful by having to always log on, clicking on cookie notifications, filling out "are you a robot" captcha forms etc without much gain because I assume you already block 3rd party cookies and advertisers and trackers through a browser add-on. So it is just 1st party ones that you accept which are mostly for you benefit and you are deleting those when you have already left a footprint behind bigger than any cookie.

I never use my real information on any social site plus I hardly use them anymore, apart from one and yes am aware what social sites do and have done . I know there's a lot sites that can put your information or data at risk ( I have done this more times than I can count in the past) . Am not perfect but I like to educate myself enough or get information to find ways to improve.

I don't use any browser add on, 
And what do you mean I might left bigger footprint than any cookie ? 

What I mean by leaving a bigger fingerprint is that cookies aren't the only way you can be tracked on the internet. Websites can easily build a "fingerprint" profile of you based on your computer hardware, software, add-ons, and even preferences. Your settings like the screen you use, the fonts installed on your computer, and even your choice of a web browser can all be used to create a fingerprint. This means you can still be tracked for months after you've deleted cookies. 

https://www.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/features/block-fingerprinting/

Logging into a website even under a fake profile is giving more away than a cookie, next time you visit that website then all the tracking that went on last time you logged in is still known, even if you delete cookies because the tracking is associated with your login and stored on their servers. 

It isn't just your browser - your anti-virus and operating system are all sending tracking data back to somebody about your computer usage.

Not sure what browser you use but if you are really privacy conscious I expect you use Firefox which has the better privacy and has built in fingerprint blockers to stop the above as well as blocking 3rd party cookies. Also consider the "Brave" browser.

In terms of add-ins - they can be really useful - such as uBlock Origin which is an open source wide spectrum content blocker that will work more effectively than deleting cookies - it will stop connections with most of the advert / marketing / data collection tracking websites that go on in the background and prevent a lot of tracking as well as cookies being deposited in the first place. There is another add-in called no-script which can also improve privacy but is quite intrusive in that you need to allow various bits of content to get some web pages to load but at least you know what is going on in the background.

My point was really that deleting cookies after every 3 web sites isn't really a good use of your time and energy when there are many other ways to easily track you. And it isn't just your PC that is tracking, your smart TV, smart speaker etc are all sending tracking info back to somewhere - you can't delete cookies in them but they know all about your usage history and are sharing it with someone.

And there are much better ways to stay private on the internet if you are really concerned about privacy - for example:

• Use a privacy focussed browser such as Firefox (not Chrome!) that blocks 3rd party cookies, doesn't allow your fingerprint tracking and used in private browsing mode will automatically clear all your cookies and history when you finish browsing.
• Use a tracking and advert blocker such as uBlock Origin (careful with these - choose a reputable open source one)
• Use a DNS provider that doesn't keep logs of your website visits or sell them
• Use a PiHole or similiar for blocking advert and tracking DNS lookups at a household level
• Use a privacy based search engine (ie not Google)
• Use a VPN to hide your activity from your ISP
• Use Linux instead of Windows
• Or go full extreme and use Tor to completely fool anybody trying to track your data

Having said all of the above - I do very little of that, just 2 and 3 of the above unless needed and never delete cookies because I don't see adverts anyway because they are all blocked - all depends on how concerned you are but in my opinion cookies are the least of my worries. I'm put more effort into the security side of things than privacy.

bob_a_builder

Tin foil hats at the ready

Another new form of web browser / user 'fingerprinting'  .... The 'favicons' track

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDgvr4xpjn4

LightKnow

Thanks for alot informative help, It's given me slot of insight and It got me thinking ...this might sound odd but I try explain what am thinking

So Cookies are they associated solely with device or connection between browser and internet provider too ? Do cookies follow if that makes sense e.g if changed service provider or home address or device?  I promise am not being paranoid lol I genuinely interested in cookies limitations

Are there such thing as a DNS provider who doesn't track ?

Last o dear I don't think I check to much into favicon tracking.. otherwise am gonna have a overload lol 

CoastingHatbox

Cookies

In most cases your ISP will have no bearing on cookies. That said, some tracking services that embed cookies in devices could look up ISP information and embed it in a cookie (you can take an IP address, see which Asynchronous System (AS) it belongs to and look up the owner of that AS (your ISP). I've never heard of that being done.

Cookies are stored under a user profile on a device, so they are typically associated with a single user & device. That said, if you log into an account on two devices, those two devices are potentially associated to the same user and potentially tracked together.

DNS

I think there are privacy focussed DNS providers (n.b. they say the do not log, but you take that on faith)

The difficulty is that DNS queries are sent in clear text so your ISP can see them, unless you are using a VPN, in which case your VPN provider can see them.

There is a thing called DNS over HTTPs (DoH) which is avaiable in recent versions of Firefox, but right now there are not many DNS servers supporting DoH. So you can encrypt your DNS queries from the web browser, at least, but you still have to rust the DoH provider.

Privacy in General

I take a number of steps to try and protect my privacy.

1. Browser has amnesia. When I close the browser all stored data is deleted. If I've visited a site which I don't trust to respect my privacy, I'll close and re-open the browser
2. I've tailored a number of settings in the browser to defeat a few fingerprinting techniques
3. I default deny java script and only permit scripts when I've found out what they are
4. I use EFF's privacy badger
5. I use CanvasBlocker to reduce fingerprint capability or give randomise false canvas sizes
6. I use UserAgentSwitcher to randomise the user agent string my browser users
7. I use a VM for casual browsing, which is perma-routed over a VPN. Actually, I have 3 VPN clients running on the firewall and I round-robin connections between them

There are inevitably some websites that break for whatever reason with this setup, so I have a more relaxed setup on machines which I use them with. This is mainly online banking.

I'm under no illusions, that my activity can still be tracked. Also, a lot of websites switch from using third party cookies to first party cookies for tracking by third parties. They do this by delegating a subdomain which browsers still treat as first party. So if I run a website, www.example.com and I create a subdomain called tracking.example.com, I can delegate the subdomain to myHorrendousWebTrackingCompany and that subdomain will drop and access the cookies, circumventing the disabling of third party cookies.

So, the final round of defense is not giving my personal information to websites unless I absolutely need to.