blob: ccdd9cdc9b9301a34a8ab75ba052ab8213c9e406 (
plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
|
Browsers hemorrhage information. Cookies, auto-fill information, search history and more can be accessed by websites, and while sometimes this information is gather for benign reasons, sometimes it's not.
With more and more people refusing to accept cookies in their browsers (almost every modern browser contains a preference for controlling cookie settings) marketers and others that would like to know what you do on the internet have turned to other means.
One sneaky way of grabbing information uses the browsers cache as a means of tracking user behavior.
Which brings us to [SafeCache][1], a Firefox plug-in developed by Stanford university that protects your privacy by defending against cache-based tracking techniques.
SafeCache allows embedded content to be cached, but segments the cache according to the domain of the originating page.
To install SafeCache, just head over to the site and hit "install." Once you restart Firefox open up the preferences and under the "Privacy" tab you should see a new option to turn SafeCache on and off. Regrettably there isn't a way to set per-site permissions, but it's still better than nothing at all.
The same folks at Stanford that developed SafeCache also have another Firefox add-on named [SafeHistory][2] which attempts to defend against visited-link-based tracking techniques.
And for an excellent write up on various other ways you can make Firefox more secure have a look at Security Hack's "[Firefox: 10 tips to bolster your privacy][3]."
[via [Lifehacker][4]]
[1]: http://www.safecache.com/ "SafeCache"
[2]: http://www.safehistory.com/
[3]: http://www.security-hacks.com/2007/06/08/firefox-10-tips-to-bolster-your-privacy "Firefox: 10 tips to bolster your privacy"
[4]: http://lifehacker.com/software/featured-firefox-extension/prevent-cache+based-tracking-with-safecache-270366.php
|
