The Great Privacy Debate

It seems you cannot go anywhere on the internet these days without someone arguing about the privacy concerns of this website, or that technology, but to the average everyday person, what does all of this really mean? Consider this, millennials are going to be the first generation where your birth and government records, your school records, your health records, and your “likes” are all electronic, and in many cases easily accessible. The fact that this information is out there may not be an issue alone, but when large companies aggregate that information to create a dossier on you, and then target adds to the person they think you are, it can be a little creepy. In 2012 Target was able to predict and determine that a girl was pregnant, even before her father did. Target had (based on its prediction the girl was pregnant) sent coupons to the girl that matched products she would need at that stage of her pregnancy. All of that was based purely on purchasing habits over a few months of one credit card.

Now at the same time no one is advocating for using only cash at the grocery store, deleting your Facebook right now, or closing your Gmail because Google scans it, because those services are useful. I literally wouldn't be able to do any work if I didn't have a Facebook account. Perhaps though a middle ground can be reached, one where we don’t volunteer every bit of our interests to the world for examination, but we also don’t live as shut-ins wearing tin-foil hats. Below I have compiled some of the easiest ways to reduce some of the data available about you on the internet. Next week is going to be an outline of the legal rights you have regarding your data (spoiler: it’s not a lot).

Facebook

Large data aggregation companies mine Facebook, twitter, and any other social media sites to get more information about what you like (advertisers) and your habits/history (Background checks). One of the easiest ways that you can prevent your information from getting out there is to change your posting from the default friends of friends to friends. For example if you post a picture of you and your friends drinking, that gets shared with your 2,000 or so friends, and if it’s also shared with friends of friends, suddenly 4,000,000 people have access to the photo. Facebook actually has a handy little tool that allows you to change all of your previous posts to friends or private if you want to hide all of your old stuff, but keep in mind this won’t affect a third party that already has your information. You can also in the privacy settings make it so that your profile is not searchable on the internet (so getting to it from google for example), but anyone with a Facebook account will still be able to search it in Facebook’s search engine. Finally, make sure to manage things you are tagged in carefully, if you are tagged in a friend’s photo, you have no control over who its shared with, only your friend does.

Google Products

Gmail: There is nothing you can do except change add settings in your general Google profile. This is done by going to settings in your Google profile, then privacy/adds, and selecting the opt out option for everything.

Google Chrome: Although your protections on paper (in the contract you accept when installing) are very limited, Google does offer some helpful extensions to reduce the ability of sites to collect data on you as you are browsing. The first is the Google Analytics Opt-out Add-on, and the second is Keep My Opt-Outs, both are by google, and both help to stop advertising cookies from landing on your computer. Of course if you really want to eliminate the ability for cookies to land on your machine at all you can do so manually in the settings of Chrome, although the result is a browser that is almost non-functional.
Google+: Essentially any information you put in your about profile for Google+ is automatically public, period. So, only put up what you would feel comfortable everyone knowing about you.

If you live in Europe you have the ability to request google take down certain search results. How that process works is rather unclear as it requires you to (Currently as of 9/18/2014) submit a legal action, but that process may become more straightforward with time.

I accept the terms and conditions

In theory of course you should be always reading the terms and conditions before you click accept because clicking that button is the same as signing your legal signature, but in reality no one does that. Instead most of us just hit the button and then go back to what we were doing. Now to be fair most of us don’t have the time to read the 100+ pages of legal documentation that come with the iphone, so instead one of the best ways to know if there is an issue is to google/bing/duckduckgo it. Chances are that even if you haven’t read the contract, someone else has, and they will have posted on the internet what you are signing away (if its anything important to them). Of course if you do have the time, read the privacy section because that’s the most important part, everything else is usually just common sense.

Pros and Cons of Commonly Used Internet Browsers

These days there are many popular browsers to choose from: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer to name a few. Most people are running Chrome or Firefox, but there are advantages and disadvantages to each one. Here's the breakdown:

Chrome: Currently the most widely used browser, Chrome boasts fast boot-up and loading times, a massive extensions marketplace, and an easy-to-use interface. You can also go "Incognito" if you don't want to save search history or cookies. Chrome also integrates your preferences over every device on which you use Chrome, even if it's a public computer. Simply log into your Google account and all of your bookmarks, preferences, and recent history is returned to the computer.The Chrome store is also occasionally interesting (it's very small though), and the Chromebooks are a nice addition to the Chrome family.

However, Chrome isn't all cupcakes and rainbows; Chrome achieves its fast boot-up times by starting up in the background as soon as your computer turns on, though you can change this on Windows using MSConfig or Autoruns. The loading times are most likely made possible by the large memory requirements Chrome places on your computer. To see what I mean, you can open up Task Manager (Ctrl + Alt + Del on Windows 7, or from Terminal in Mac) and go to the Processes tab. Here's mine for example. 5 of the 6 most memory-consuming processes were all Chrome-related, and I only had 2 tabs open with minimal extensions. Plus, some sites (Hopkins sites, banking sites, etc.) have an issue with working on Chrome, and some of those issues stem from the fact that it is a 32-bit browser, unlike Firefox or Safari, which are 64-bit. At the point when this happens, I just switch to using another browser.

Further, Incognito mode doesn't actually do much to protect your privacy. Google's own page states that it won't affect "Websites that collect or share information about you, ... malicious software ... [or] secret agents". And because Chrome is proprietary (not open-source), it is always possible that the browser has some hidden behaviors to collect your information. Thanks to Edward Snowden, Google's quip about secret agents just doesn't seem funny anymore.

Oh, and that new scroll bar is awful.

Firefox: Unlike Chrome, Firefox by Mozilla is entirely open-source. Like Chrome, Firefox can be set up so that you can use your settings from any device (Using Sync), but if privacy is a concern, you don't have to. One of my favorite features on Firefox is the "Master Password". Like Chrome, Firefox will ask you if you want to save a password for a site. Without Sync, Mozilla doesn't need to know your passwords; they can be stored safely on your computer. And with Master Password, you can make wildly complex passwords for all your online accounts, and only have to remember one. That being said, your Master Password should still be fairly secure in case your computer falls into the wrong hands.

I also prefer how Firefox displays their privacy options. Here is Chrome and Firefox side-by-side:
Chrome's privacy setting are actually much longer than what is shown, and all the powerful options are hidden in a non-descript button called "Content settings". Plus, there's no description as to what the settings mean. What are handlers? Which plug-ins are running without my knowledge? While Firefox may not have as many options as Chrome, Firefox is much more verbose with the options it does have.

Firefox is noticeably slower than Chrome, but also places less memory requirements (For me, only one process, and it requires about a third of the memory that Chrome collectively asks for.) Bottom line: Firefox is more trustworthy than Chrome and has more understandable options, at the cost of some speed and overall performance.

Internet Explorer: If you're running Windows, Internet Explorer comes natively on your computer, making it the ideal web browser for downloading a better web browser. As far as other real advantages, there really aren't any. It's as slow (if not slower) than Firefox, and doesn't really have any features that stick out. Its Settings page is bloated to the point that it is difficult to find the settings you want to change, the horizontal scrollbar can be unresponsive for touchpads. If you're using IE to view this blog, do yourself a favor and switch to Chrome or Firefox right now.

Safari: Safari is the Internet Explorer for Macs; it's the native web browser and comes installed on the OS without any work on your end. Unlike Internet Explorer, however, Safari is actually a decent browser (though Firefox is still #1 in my book). The current edition available for Macs is Safari 7, and there is a Windows Safari application also available (5.7.1). Because of the large population of iPhone users, Safari accounted for 62.17 percent of mobile web browsing traffic, but only 5.43 percent of desktop traffic in October 2011. Curious.

The privacy settings on Safari are also pretty impressive, with third party and cookie blocking, options that will tell websites not to track you, and Private Browsing, which is more comprehensive that Chrome's Incognito mode. Safari is also very power efficient on Macs, designed to help your battery last for 1 hour longer than it would if you were using Chrome or Firefox. Both Firefox and Chrome also use about a third more memory (133%) on your hard drive than Safari will (again, on a Mac). According to the Apple page, Safari is also 6x faster than Firefox. The Safari extensions act like the Chrome additions, allowing users to choose weather apps, Facebook enhancers, and things that will help with code debugging.

Safari promises to do all this on Macs, and I know from experience on my home PC that Safari is not even close to these stats on a PC. You are much better off with Firefox or Chrome on a PC, no question. Despite all the advantages, Safari is still far behind Firefox and Chrome, even on Macs. I like how Chrome can integrate over all my computers and Chromebook, but Safari has nothing like that. It certainly helps make a decision.

We hope that this post has helped you if you ever had questions about web browsers. Thanks for reading!