We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
SOMETIMES YOU WILL prefer sites not to be tracking your browsing activity or serving up personalised ads.
If so, you should be aware that all major browsers have a Do Not Track option available. This sends a request to any site you visit asking it not to track your activity.
The site in question has to decide whether to honour that request or not, but if it does, it could stop offering personalised ads or limit the amount of information it gathers on you while you’re visiting.
The five major browsers support this service and it can be activated in settings. If you want to quickly check whether you have it activated, you can visit its site, but if you don’t, here’s how.
Chrome
On the main settings screen, scroll down to the bottom and select advanced settings. Continue down to privacy and you will see the Do Not Track option. The app version also has it in Settings > Privacy.
Firefox
Go into Settings > Privacy and it’s the first option you see. If you want, you can choose to tell sites you want to be tracked or leave it on default (not telling them anything about your tracking preference). Choosing the latter will likely mean you’re going to be tracked when you visit a site.
Opera
When you go into Settings, look for ‘Privacy & Settings’ and you will see the option in the first section.
Safari
In Preferences/Settings, go into privacy and you will find website tracking at the bottom of the list. Tick it to activate it.
Internet Explorer
How you activate it will depend on the version of Internet Explorer you’re using. For the latest version, go into Settings > Privacy > Tracking Protection. You will need to download a tracking list from Internet Explorer Gallery to stop sites from tracking you.
Other versions require you to select Tools (the cog icon) before going into Safety and turning on Tracking Protection.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
All Do Not Track does is to tell the website that you prefer not to be tracked. Unfortunately, they are not compelled to honour your request.
Better off with Ghostery and AdBlock than DNT, but can even they be trusted? There was some controversy about them allegedly being in bed with advertisers.
Im just glad google is tracking me and not the misses!!
Google IS your other missus.
I call my missus Google because apparently she knows fookin everything.
“The site in question has to decide….” is exactly why I VPN to the eyeballs. I still get profiled by third party advertising companies, but it’s not really “me” that they’re profiling, it’s me and hundreds/thousands of others. Switch tunnel every now and again, I’m a ghost!
A naive ghost who dares not think too much of the other evils on t’internet.
oh yeah, Flash and JS can feck off too. Block by default, activate on a per-use basis.
VPN is great but won’t protect you from browser fingerprinting. Can’t remember the site to check it, I think it’s panopticon or panopticlick or something, and make your signature as generic as possible.
Also use UglyEmail for Chrome to stop the emails you receive tracking your position. Saps wanna know where I am!!!
Quinton, there are better ways to protect yourself online than DNT. As it’s not honoured, you kinda wasted your time making this article and it might lull someone into a false sense of security. I think a better option for an article like this would be a review of VPN services, or how to set up TBB/Tails. Theres even an Irish link to that; Tails (the linux system used by Snowden for anonymity) is actually one of the few Irish Linux distros!
Tails is Irish? I had no idea. I’ve used Kali and BT for learning (and playing with neighbours) but not Tails. Shame most Linux distros, even Ubuntu are too complicated for most users.
As much as I live the CLI, Linux needs a unified UI for EVERY app (and NOT unity). Until that happens, Windows and OSX will go from strength to strength. Linux developers develop tools that work, not tools that are foolproof or built with UI/UX in mind.
Interesting.
have your say