When you browse the web, you’re constantly bombarded by little pieces of data called cookies. Cookies will sit in your browser’s storage, holding small pieces of information. This was meant to just hold things like preferences or login information, but the cookies have become so much more. Now companies use them to track your behavior online across websites. A website will tag you with information, say that you recently searched amazon for a wrist brace. Now, on Facebook, you’ll see ads for wrist braces, physical therapy gear, and other protective gear. Facebook saw the information in that cookie and served you a relevant ad.
But Facebook is just a small part of that. Google is the biggest cookie provider on the planet. They track your searches, the links you click, what you read, and what you buy. They create profiles to better serve you ads. Many sites have ads from Google, and many others report to Google what they’re doing.
But imagine if a website never needed to load you up with tracking cookies. Imagine if the browser you’re using was a giant tracking cookie. That’s Chrome. Google’s Chrome browser is owned by the largest company dedicated to tracking your online behavior. It’s owners refuse to allow tracking cookie blocking and even fight ad blockers. Firefox and Safari, on the other hand, block trackers. Firefox even takes this a step further and uses containers to separate your data, making you incredibly difficult to track.
Apple wants to keep its users feeling safe, so Safari isn’t a tracking machine and helps users block tracking. Firefox is by Mozilla, a company with an obsessive drive for privacy. Why would you want to use the browser by the people who profit off of tracking you?
The Cookie Nightmare
Even an innocent site like The Washington Post is full of trackers. Firefox blocks them. Chrome welcomes them.
A Washington Post technology columnist, Geoffrey A. Fowler, has been re-examining his privacy. He decided to test just how many tracking cookies Firefox was blocking, but Google’s Chrome was letting through. In just one week of web use, he had 11,189 blocked cookies in Firefox. Google Chrome let all of those tracking cookies through. Over 11K different interests and companies, recorded for the highest bidder. Even websites that should be private, like healthcare websites, were installing tracking cookies, which made it right past Google’s open door policy on tracking cookies.
Furthermore, Google logs you in to the Chrome browser when you log in to any Google services. Log in to gmail from your browser? Congrats, your browser itself is now tied to your Google identity. Your Google identity that Google keeps for advertising purposes, of course. Now sites don’t need to track your usage, the browser can do that for them.
The Biggest Cookie Bakery
Google sign in and ads are on many websites. You use your gmail account to sign up for other accounts. Your Android phone sends your GPS location to Google whenever you do a search, even if you have GPS access off (it’s just a little less accurate then). Google is collecting mountains of data on you. Some of it is through the services you use, or the browser you use. The rest is through their massive tracking network. Nearly every site has some Google ads, including this one. Those ads report back to Google your interests, both in the ads they’ve already shown you as well as the pages you’ve been visiting.
The fact is, if you use Chrome, there’s no escaping Google’s tracking. However, Safari and especially Firefox take great effort to ensure that what you browse stays private. Google hands out more cookies than anyone and their browser is designed to track users. You might as well put a billboard outside of your house listing your interests.
All of your interests.
Switching is Easy
Switching your browser isn’t as complicated as getting a new phone. On a Mac or iOS device, you already have Safari, which is far more private than Google Chrome. But it’s not quite as extreme as Firefox. For that level of blocking, you’ll have to do a little more.
Okay. Head over to Mozilla’s site and download Firefox for free. Yup, completely free. That’s it. Install it and you’re done. If you want to transfer over settings, preferences, passwords, bookmarks, and even history from Chrome, it’s easy as checking it off during setup.
Firefox is thinking of a pro-tier paid browser in the future that has a built-in VPN and other extreme privacy tools, but the base version will always be free. Mozilla collects donations and also makes money off of search engines getting their browsers set as defaults. Mozilla makes money off of Google, which is funny, considering they’re also kicking sand in their eyes.
I, personally, use Firefox on all my devices. It’s cross platform, on Windows and Android, so I’m never without my bookmarks. It’s fast, memory efficient, and secure. Just download it, follow the setup instructions, and enjoy the heightened privacy Firefox gives you without ever knowing it.
Source: Geoffrey A. Fowler, The Washington Post