Privacy conscious internet users are sometimes worried about the websites tracing their web usage and in order to prevent such tracking they often employ one or more than one means like browser extensions or VPN proxies etc. But a simpler and better way is to let these tracking sites know that you do not wish to be tracked by sending the DNT header (do not track header – a message about not wanting to be tracked). Some of the web browsers have this setting in-built, that you can enable to send the DNT header to various sites. For example, you can enable the do-not-track feature in the Chrome browser.
In addition, you can also make the browser send the do not track header to all the tracking web sites using the AVG Do Not Track extension which is available both for the Chrome and the Firefox web browsers. This extension not only blocks the tracking by making a request through a DNT header, but it can also block certain social networks and web analysis networks often used by different web sites too.
After the installation, it places a button on the Chrome toolbar with an eye icon. When you visit a website, it actively looks for the tracking services, social network integration and the web analytics code used on that website. The number of such items found is displayed in the icon – clicking on which you can show the details of all the items found. You can block all the items detected on a website or selectively block them as you please.
In the settings of AVG Do Not Track extension, you can choose the tracking servers that you wish to block. You can also choose whether you want to send the DNT header to web tracking sites or not.
Even though the tracking sites or social network integration does not really violate a person’s privacy that much when doing casual web browsing, the AVG Do Not Track extension could be used to protect your online privacy a little more than what is offered by your web browser’s settings.
You can get the AVG Do Not Track extension for Chrome from https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/epojjbofkhffmihobdncmbhdocjljhpi.