Shopsmith Forums

I discovered something interesting today.

I use Eset Nod32 Internet Security and Malwarebytes Premium on all my computers and cell phones. All paid for.

A while ago Malwarebytes added a module for Firefox to add malware protection and block Ad trackers. Malwarebytes adds an icon to the Firefox tool bar so you can see how many Ad blocks have been detected and stopped. I have never paid too much attention to the icon but today I noticed something amazing.

This site shows 280 ad blocks. 260 from Google. I checked a dozen or so other sites that I regularly visit (bank, shopping, eBay, etc). None had more than 15 blocked trackers and most were in the 5 to 7 range. eBay had none.

So what say you internet gurus?

Firefox already has an ad blocker available. Just activate uBlock Origin. It is free, and yes, some sites will show a lot of ads that are trying to popup.

I'm a bit suspicious about your number of ads blocked on this site. If there were that many the site wouldn't even be usable without an ad blocker. Did you see a lot of ads before using the ad blocker?

I see only 1 ad blocked here on the Shopsmith site.

Ads are one thing and tracking is another. The ads are good only for someone trying to sell you their product. The tracking serves many purposes. One important one is to populate the search engines with the information on the site so when you do a search on the internet, they have the information you are looking for.

garys wrote:Firefox already has an ad blocker available. Just activate uBlock Origin. It is free, and yes, some sites will show a lot of ads that are trying to popup.

I'm a bit suspicious about your number of ads blocked on this site. If there were that many the site wouldn't even be usable without an ad blocker. Did you see a lot of ads before using the ad blocker?

I see only 1 ad blocked here on the Shopsmith site.

Ads are one thing and tracking is another. The ads are good only for someone trying to sell you their product. The tracking serves many purposes. One important one is to populate the search engines with the information on the site so when you do a search on the internet, they have the information you are looking for.

I said trackers not Ads. I have FF blocking turned on. I don't get any ads here and never have. The issue is the trackers. ABP shows 12 ads blocked on this site? FF shows 118 trckers blocked today. Malwarebytes shows 295 trackers blocked on this site right now. 249 from ssl.google-analytics.com, 26 from googleads.g.doubleclick.net, 17 from static.doubleclick.net and 2 from http://www.youtube.com.

Maybe some tracking blockers are better than others.

You know what, I don't want anyone to store what I am searching for regardless what it is. I want search engines to store what web sites have and give that to me. The only reason to store what I searched for is so they can send me junk based on that search. Fortunately most of the ad blockers and tracking blockers seem to help now days.

I have had only one email address in my life since 1992. Well, besides the Google address (that I don't use) required for my smart phone. I get very few spam emails and almost all of them are filtered out by my ISP and Thunderbird. I contribute that to being conscientious on the web for 25 years.

"Ads are one thing and tracking is another."

How is that? They track you so they can send you ads. No matter what you say you will never convince me otherwise.

You can prevent some of the tracking activity by running Firefox in a private window.
"File"
"New Private Window"

garys wrote:You can prevent some of the tracking activity by running Firefox in a private window.
"File"
"New Private Window"

I know that and do some times. My point is why so many blocks on this site compared to other sites. FF and Malwarebytes are absolutely doing their thing.

John,

Are you using Google as you internet access or search engine? Google tracks everything and even activates you camera from time to time. Other search engines do the same but apparently not as much as Google. I have my camera covered. I don't think they need to see me while I am using my computer. Paranoid? I think not.

chapmanruss wrote:John,

Are you using Google as you internet access or search engine? Google tracks everything and even activates you camera from time to time. Other search engines do the same but apparently not as much as Google. I have my camera covered. I don't think they need to see me while I am using my computer. Paranoid? I think not.

Russ,

So, when Skynet is built, how is the AI going to track you down if they don't know what you look like??? Best to claim fealty now to our future robotic overlords...

Trust me there is enough information/photos out there for them to identify me.

I don't have these problem anymore, thanks to Microsoft. Windows, with the upgrade to Windows 10, no longer supports my camcorder.

Dusty,

Are you sure it is not trying to access a webcam? Did you block access for this function? I have a new laptop computer running Windows 10 that I replaced my old laptop that had Windows 10 upgrade running on it. Both have the drop down notification when on the web saying Microsoft Edge Content Process is using the webcam mostly when opening a website or doing a search. I can elect to block this from happening but since my camera is covered I didn't bother. Using Google on line on my old laptop had the same thing happen except a message from Google doing it. When I used a desktop computer it wasn't an issue since it did not have a camera connected to it, but that's been a few years.