How to stop Facebook and other sites from tracking you

[pastrychef]

Google will continue to be Google. That's the way it works in Silicon valley these days. They've made billions in profits from online ads and data collection and will continue along that path.

The easy solution seems to be just avoid Chrome.

 

[VioletDragon]

Depending on what Firewall solution you have you can block it or simply redirect to 127.0.0.1 loopback.

 

[trs96]

After digging deeper into the FB privacy settings I've found a more direct way to stop them from tracking your off FB activity. Whether they fully respect this or not is another question.

When you look through the settings -> privacy you'll see a summary of how many different apps and sites you've used that FB has tracked. You can clear all this and prevent it in the future too. Never knew about this. They bury it so deep in the sub menus that most people will never be aware they have this option.

To disconnect your off-Facebook activity from your account:​

1. Click
   
   in the top right of Facebook.
2. Select Settings & Privacy, then click Settings.
3. Click Your Facebook Information in the left column, then click Off-Facebook Activity.
4. Click Clear History > Clear History.

You can also choose to turn off your future off-Facebook activity. Learn more about managing your future activity.

Here's the direct link: www.facebook.com/off_facebook_activity/

or you can go through the menu and find it here:

This is on by default for every FB account.

They do give you the option to opt out of this.

If you have a FB account take a look at these settings and do what is in your best interest.

 

[trs96]

Another reason to avoid having a FB account. Security issues which make all of your personal data available to hackers too.

Facebook data leak: details from 533 million users found on website for hackers

Information appears to be several years old while Facebook says leak stems from problem fixed in 2019

www.theguardian.com

 

[hisartwork]

Another reason to avoid having a FB account. Security issues which make all of your personal data available to hackers too.

Facebook data leak: details from 533 million users found on website for hackers

Information appears to be several years old while Facebook says leak stems from problem fixed in 2019

www.theguardian.com

Finally deleted mine recently, I really only kept it around because of the ease of signing up and logging in to sites/services but a terrible idea that was.

 

[MacMan]

How to check if your data is leaked:

https://haveibeenpwned.com

 

[wstrohm]

Looks like I have "been pwned" but haven't seen anything other than spam. Hopefully my NAT router will prevent other types of intrusion. Or maybe not...

 

[trs96]

Looks like I have "been pwned" but haven't seen anything other than spam.

If you are on the pwned list, change all passwords for sites that use the email address as the username. Hackers could be trying to get into those sites where you use that email address for the username. They just haven't succeeded yet.

Hopefully my NAT router will prevent other types of intrusion. Or maybe not...

It has more to do with the security or lack of it at the sites where you have online accounts.

 

[trs96]

Here are a few password manager apps that let you generate secure and unique passwords.

Dashlane and 1Password apps are available through the Mac App Store. A newer one is NordPass that looks good too. I haven't tried it yet but it's free to use on your desktop computer.

Download Password Manager for MacOS

Eliminate password stress from your online experience. Get the NordPass password manager for MacOS and forget about security questions, password reminders, and sticky notes.

nordpass.com

When you use the same password for multiple sites, you become vulnerable on all of them. Websites and password servers around the world are breached almost every day. The passwords collected this way are sold online. Hackers scan other websites and accounts for the same login info, quickly finding your other accounts they can break into.

 

[JBX]

I found this thread far too late. I recently almost quit FaceBook because I was in FaceBook Jail for the 5th time this year. Then I thought, they must really love me. I give their employees and algorithms something to do.