Google's harvesting of personal data from web users

[Slowpoke47]

Firefox is my go-to browser and Gmail is my long-time email choice. I'm increasingly concerned about data harvesting, and I'm told that Google is one of the worst offenders, which has dissuaded me from using Chrome. But, does Google have a window on my browsing history through the Gmail tab on Firefox? Does it matter whether the Gmail account page is open or not?

Also, I use the Google search engine, and assume it tracks my activity. Is there another search engine that compares to Google that is less nosy?

 

[Barman58]

Use what ever browser you are happy with - the data harvesting is a fact of life with the internet and is performed by everyone, starting with your ISP. The internet is paid for by advertising on the pages we visit, data collection allows this advertising to be customised to be more pertinent to you and your interests - If you did not have data harvesting you would still get advertising, and if i'm going to get it I would rather it be relevant to me and not the 15 year old kid up the road

You do hear a lot about data harvesting and the data being sold to all sorts of companies and even government agencies - this is I believe more to do with personal opinions rather than the actual truth of things - the only way you can stop the collecting of this data is to not use the internet, and then you will still have your data collected in other ways.

Although you will not see advertising on this site as a member we are funded by the advertisers who's advertising is shown to guests

 

[indianacarnie]

What he said.

Having said that, I no longer use any Google related products. Once I saw that they were giving me ad's rom INSIDE my e-mail's I said enough (for me). There's many different search engines out there catering to just about any tastes. DuckDuckGo doesn't track you but can be a little confusing if you haven't used it before. As Barman58 said, tracking/"snooping" is pretty much a fact of life on the net these days. If you're that worried about it you'll need a VPN and the Tor browser and even then , as stated, you'll not be 100% free from it.

 

[Layback Bear]

My thoughts.

Advertising pays most of the cost of the internet. It's a must and a fact of life.
If one is on the internet you can bet your bottom dollar their is always some type of tracking.

Remember that tracking comes from all direction.
Every time one uses a credit card they are being tracked. That tracking information is sold to somebody.
That tracking is done where ever you use the credit card.

Now the proof of tracking.
Google did not built the biggest search engine on the globe not to make money.
I use Google and pay them nothing. I do know they track me. That is the price one pays to use the free search engine and I don't care what search engine one chooses.

Your cell phone is probably one of the best ways to track someone and people think nothing about it.
The GPS in your car is another tracking device.

Yes for sure we are being tracked. If one is not careful one can be tracked right to their bank account.

Jack

 

[Callender]

You might be interested in this thread although it deals with an older version if Firefox.

Firefox 33 - Startup Issue - Windows 7 Help Forums

If reading through the above you wonder about google embedded fonts here's the hosts file entry to block:

127.0.0.1 fonts.googleapis.com

RE: Your Google Web History. Sign into your account and check it.

Sign in - Google Accounts