For most Web activities, many people won't be bothered that they are served up ads for cars or even acne cream if they have been reading news about the newest Tesla or visiting dermatology Web sites. But what about when someone is researching a hereditary or embarrassing medical condition that one would not want revealed to advertisers, shoulder surfers or, worse yet, insurance companies?
Private Mode
You might want to start by perusing the Web in Private Mode. Private browsing, affectionately dubbed "porn mode," allows you flip a switch in the browser so it stops saving a record of the sites you have visited and content you have downloaded until you flip the switch off.
- In Firefox it's called "Private Browsing."
- There's an Incognito mode extension for Chrome. This article tells you how to switch any tab to Incognito with one click and here's information for using Incognito for specific sites.
- Internet Explorer has an InPrivate browsing feature, as well as offers a way for people to selectively block sites from tracking.
- Apple has had private browsing since OS X Lion.
Not only have researchers figured out ways to defeat some of the private browsing features, but private browsing offers limited protection. For example, private browsing tools don't stop social sharing buttons and ads from following you as you bounce from site to site.
As a result, we have software like Abine's Do Not Track Plus browser add-on, which blocks Web sites and ad networks from following you around the Web and lets you see who is trying to track you.
And there is AVG's Do Not Track, which lets you fine-tune the blocking of ad networks and Web analytics.
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