How to Prevent Google from tracking you

Much has been made of Google's new privacy policy, which takes effect March 1. If you're concerned about Google misusing your personal information or sharing too much of it with advertisers and others, there are plenty of ways to avoid Web trackers.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation offers the Panopticlick service that rates the anonymity of your browser. The test shows you the identifiable information provided by your browser and generates a numerical rating that indicates how easy it would be to identify you based solely on your browser's fingerprint.

According the the entropy theory explained by Peter Eckersley on the EFF's DeepLinks blog, 33 bits of entropy are sufficient to identify a person. According to Eckersley, knowing a person's birth date and month (not year) and ZIP code gives you 32 bits of entropy. Also knowing the person's gender (50-50, so one bit of entropy) gets you to the identifiable threshold of 33 bits.

In some ways, Google's explanation of personalized ads is more informative than the company's privacy policy. Of course it's in Google's best interest to keep you in the personalized-ads fold, but the company does its best to present personalization as a boon to users. It certainly does help pay for the "free" services we've come to rely on.


Use Google's own tools to opt out of ad networks

Prominent in the Google privacy policy are links to services that let you view and manage the information you share with Google. Some of this personal data you volunteer, and some of it is collected by Google as you search, browse, and use other services.

To view everything (almost) Google knows about you, open the Google Dashboard. Here you can access all the services associated with your Google account: Gmail, Google Docs, YouTube, Picasa, Blogger, AdSense, and every other Google property. The dashboard also lets you manage your contacts, calendar, Google Groups, Web history, Google Voice account, and other services.

More importantly, you can view and edit the personal information stored by each Google service, or delete the service altogether. To see which other services have access to the account's information, click "Websites authorized to access the account" at the top of the Dashboard. To block an authorized service from accessing the account, click Revoke Access next to the service name.

The Google Ads Preferences Manager lets you block specific advertisers or opt out of all targeted advertising. Click the "Ads on the web" link in the left column and then choose "add or edit" under "Your categories and demographics" to select the categories of ads you want to be served or to opt out of personalized ads.

Another option is to use Google's Keep My Opt-Outs extension for Chrome. Google also participates in the Network Advertising Initiative's opt-out program. Select some or all of the dozens of online advertisers from the NAI program and then click Submit to place a cookie in your browser instructing the ad networks not to serve personalized ads.

Free add-on for Firefox and Google Chrome targets tracking cookies

Several free browser extensions help you identify and block the companies that are tracking you on the Web. For example, Ghostery (available in versions for Firefox and Chrome) adds an icon to your browser toolbar showing the number of trackers on the current page. Click the icon to see a list of the trackers and view options for blocking or white-listing specific ones.

The free Disconnect extension (also available for Facebook and Chrome) takes a more direct approach to wiping your Web tracks. Disconnect blocks tracking by Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, and Digg. It also has an option for depersonalizing searches.

As with Ghostery, Disconnect places an icon in the browser toolbar that shows the number of elements it has blocked on the current page. Click the icon to open a window showing the number of trackers blocked for each service. To unblock tracking for one of the services, click its entry. (Note that I tested Disconnect only with Google; also, blocking of international Google domains is not yet available, according to Disconnect's developers.)

When I tested Disconnect, I had to sign into Gmail, Google Docs, and other Google services every time I returned to or refreshed one of those pages, which is understandable considering that blocking the cookie prevents Google from keeping you signed in. Otherwise I was able to use Google services without a problem, including search, viewing and sending Gmail, and accessing, creating, uploading, and downloading Google Docs files.

While people are rightly concerned about who is watching and recording their Web activities, at least Google makes it possible to use the company's services without being too forthcoming with your personal information. ISPs and other Web services do as much tracking as Google--or more--but garner far fewer headlines. For a detailed look at the state of privacy in the digital world, read about the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Surveillance Self-Defense project.

After all, the true threat to privacy is from the trackers we don't know about, and who aren't household names.

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• Google Calculator:
  • Google search can be used as a calculator. It can calculate anything from the simplest math to the most complex equation. All you need to do is just enter the math in the search box and hit enter. You can use the following functions:
    
    1. + - Add
    2. - - Subtract
    3. * - Multiply
    4. / - Divide
    5. ^ - To the Power Of
    6. sqrt - Square Root of a Number
       

• Dictionary Definitions:
  • You can define any word by entering “define:” following the word. For example define: ignoble
    Google will display a list of dictionary definitions for that word.
    
    
    

• Search for a Specific Title:
  • Suppose you came across a great article which you really liked but unfortunately forgot to bookmark it then you can find it easily with the help of Google provided you know the title of the article. Here’s how you do it:
    Let’s say you read an article “Women talk three times as much as men” then you can search for it by typing “intitle: Women talk three times as much as men”
    
    
    

• Google Converter:
  • Using this feature you can convert units like millimeter into inches, kilometers into miles, liters into ml, etc. You can do so by typing ‘25km in miles’ for converting km in to miles, ‘50litres in ml’ for converting litres into ml, and so on.
    
    
    

• Google Currency Converter:
  • Google’s search has an inbuilt currency converter. It allows you to perform any currency conversion. All you need to do is just enter the conversion you’d like done into the Google search box and hit “Enter” or click the Google Search button. For instance: “1 USD in INR”
    
    
    

• Weather Updates:
  • You can easily know the weather condition of a specific place. In order to find out, all you need to do is just enter the place name followed by “weather”. For ex: “london weather”
    
    
    

• Search on a Particular File Types:
  • There are various kinds of files available over the net. Searching for a specific file type isn’t really easy. But using this tip you can easily search for a specific file type.
    For instance if you want to search for a guide, let’s say a ‘Guide to Building a Successful IT Career’ in ppt format. You can make use of the “filetype:” function. So in order to search for the PPT version of the guide you can enter in search bar ‘Guide to Building a Successful IT Career filetype:ppt’
    
    
    

• Search on a Particular Website:
  • If you want to search for something from a particular site using Google search then you can do so by using the “site:” feature. Here’s how you do it:
    Let’s say you want to search for cloverfield DVD on Amazon, you can do so by typing “cloverfield DVD site:www.amazon.com”
    
    
    

• Get the Local Time anywhere:
  • Wanna know what time is it in London now? You can ask Google by typing “what time is it London” in the search bar. You can also enter “time (location)” without the quotes.
    
    
    

• Remove Unwanted Search Results:
  • Suppose you wanted to search a Harry potter book review but you ended up in getting reviews of the movie rather than the book. Well in this case you can make Google to exclude the movie results from the search. You can do so by adding “-movie” at the end of the term. For instance: “Harry potter Chamber of secrets -movie” This will give search results excluding the movie- The chamber of secrets.
    
    
    

• Search for URL's:
  • You can even search for URLs in Google search.For instance: “Women_talk_three_times_as_much_as_men”. You can also use “.” “-” instead of “_“. The search will bring up results with the URLs containing the above words entered.
    
    
    

• Track Flight Status:
  • You can also track a particular flight status. All you need to do is just enter the airline and flight number into the search box and hit enter. You’ll get the arrival and departure time of the flight right inside Google’s search results.
    
    
    

• Search Google Groups by the Subject Line:
  • You need to be in the google groups search page before attempting this query; otherwise it might not work correctly. Using the “insubject:” function you can search google groups by the subject line. For instance “insubject:windows xp fast shutdown”
    
    
    

• Find Related Sites:
  • Suppose you find an interesting website and you would like to find some other alternative to this site then you can do so by using “related:” function. For instance if you want to search an alternative for google.com you can do so by entering “related:www.google.com”
    
    
    

• Find Links to a Specific URL:
  • You can find the webpages which have a link to a specific URL using the “link:” function. This is really great as it will help you if you own a website, you can easily find out the pages linking to a page in your site. To use it, you need to enter the whole URL after “link:”
    For instance “link:http://www.cnn.com”
    Well that’s it for now, hope you liked them. If you know more feel free to mention them here.
    
    
    

• Whois Lookup Service:
  • You can also search for information on a particular domain name. Just type in “whois domain.com” and hit enter. You’ll get to see the creation and expiry dates of the domain.
    

Suggests Words, Phrases and their Results:This is really helpful if you aren’t able to spell a particular word or you would like to know the results a particular word would contain when searched.

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