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Two Paranoia Tips For Better Online Privacy

Posted: 04 Mar 2011 03:00 AM PST

tfh Being paranoid is easy, fun and educational these days (try to figure out if I was being sarcastic there). Time is precious however, and people want quick simple solutions to hide from The Man. That being said, here are two that actually work.

1. Always delete your cookies on exit of your browser

You’ve heard over and over again that The Man (a.k.a. Google and Facebook) is tracking your every move you do on the internet via your cookies. You could simply disable cookies from being written, but that makes many sites unusable. Instead, just have the browser delete cookies on exit.

This can be accomplished in one of two ways.

Method 1. Use Private/Incognito Browsing.

Any cookies collected during the time the browser is active are deleted on exit.

Method 2. Set browser to delete cookies on exit.

Example using Firefox via Options/Privacy tab:

Yes, this is different compared to Private Browsing because your history is still kept, which you may want to keep – but the cookies are gone on exit.

2. Buy a throwaway cell phone for site registrations

Don’t want web sites having access to your primary cell phone number? Buy a throwaway phone then.

If you’re thinking, "I should buy a phone to better protect my privacy?" It’s not so much for privacy as it is to shield against spammy companies wanting to hock products at you via telemarketers.

Google and Facebook ‘strongly suggest’ "validating" who you are these days by means of cell phone texting, because after all, your good word doesn’t mean sh*t to them anymore. Aw heck, it never did, right?

In the US, the cheapest of the cheap is still Tracfone. $10 to buy the phone, $19.99 every 90 days to keep it active which roughly translates to $7 a month. Is it worth it to spend $7 a month to keep telemarketers out of your primary cell phone? You be the judge.

Alternatively, you could use Skype – although I do not know if Skype-assigned numbers work for "validation" purposes when signing up a new Google or Facebook account.

If anyone out there has a Skype number with SMS capability, sign up a throwaway Goog or FB account and let everyone know if those numbers are permissible.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Two Paranoia Tips For Better Online Privacy

How To Get The Feed Button Back In Firefox 4

Posted: 03 Mar 2011 06:00 AM PST

The location bar a.k.a. the address bar in Firefox 4 does not show a feed button for RSS feeds by default in the standard theme. However it’s easy to bring it back. There is a “Subscribe” button that you can add in when customizing the way Firefox 4 looks. See video below for details on how to do it; it’s very easy.