Some websites track users behaviors online for providing relevant information to the user or may be for some other good reasons so it’s ok, as long as the user knows that they’re getting tracked, it seems acceptable, but in most of the cases the users are totally unaware of the fact that they’re getting tracked. That’s evil! But it’s not going to continue for long – due to a cool add-on – that will help you in tracking (and controlling ) the online trackers (so basically, it’s a meta tracker :)).
Collusion : Firefox Add-on to discover your online trackers in Real Time
Mozilla Foundation (along with Ford Foundation) has launched an add-on for Firefox web browser named – Collusion which will allow you to discover the sites which is tracking your online activity and not only that – it will also provide you some options to control it i.e you can turn off their tracking if you want. So we are moving towards a more transparent web, now take a look at how you are going to visualize the data (of trackers and how they’re linked) – Here is a snapshot taken on my browser. Using Collusion you can visualize the tracking data/activity in real time – right from your browser – in one click.
Download/Install Collusion add-on in Mozilla Firefox
Go to plugin page and download/install it. That set, you won’t have to even restart the browser. You will notice an icon of Collusion at top-bottom corner. Click on the icon and continue your browsing. Now, come back to Collusion tab and visualize/control how you’re getting tracked and by whom – see the icons of website in the little round circles (nodes).
I like this add-on very much! However my firefox (version 10.0.2 mozilla firefox for ubuntu canonical 1.0) installed on Ubuntu 10.04 crashes all the time when I start the collusion add-on. I searched over internet but there seems anybody hasn’t experienced same problem.