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Ex-Googler's 'Disconnect' Extension Disables Third-Party Data Tracking

by Max Willens on December 15, 2010 at 07:20 AM

disconnect chrome extension
The evolution of Web browsing and digital commerce makes it more difficult than ever to maintain privacy online. For all the beautiful perks offered by HTML5, we have to deal with ugly facts like the Evercookie. So, it's heartening to think that some of the people responsible for these advances are offering technology that fights back.

Three weeks ago, a former Google employee named Brian Kennish left the search behemoth to launch Disconnect, a browser extension for Chrome and Rockmelt that prevents third parties like Digg, Facebook, Twitter (and, yes, Google) from picking up cookies from your searches and browsing.

Disconnect isn't the first privacy extension to hit the Web, but it does offer the user fine-grained control over what is being blocked and shows you how many sites are being blocked when you load a certain page. In other words, you'll be alerted to the Facebook modules embedded on the blogs you're browsing. Fortunately, Disconnect lets you re-enable any of the third-party sites that you've blocked.

Versions of Disconnect for Firefox and Safari are on the way, so, until they arrive, we would recommend using one of the browsers that are protected. Or hiding in a bunker. On the moon.

Tags: evercookie, facebook disconnect, FacebookDisconnect, HTML5, privacy, web

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