Ann,

I'm trying to figure out and document how to set up Firefox for
privacy on WinXP due to data-mining attempts in web pages
that I frequent.

Simpelest solution ? Install a extension, like RequestPolicy, which blocks
all third-party content (but allows you to ajust it to your liking), meaning
all the, among others, JavaScript coming from other (datamining) domains.
That means you're left with deciding if the website your visiting is
trustworthy itself (if it will do the datamining themselves, which generally
doesn't seem to be the case).

If you don't think they are you could consider specifically blocking JS (and
objects like Flash) from that site too. Though that might be rather hard
to do, as they often will make sure that their site "won't run" when you
block JS altogether. (but sometimes simply swithing FFs 'page style' to None
bypasses some of those sites "can't work, won't work" overlay which *hides*
the actual content)

In that case you have to make a choice: do you want to spend a *lot* of time
trying to figure out which scripts you will, and which you won't accept (and
have to do that every time the website changes), or do you just choose *not*
to visit them again.

For the record: I've disabled JS and de-installed Flash and the like. I
seldom run into websites that actually *need* JS to function (which doesn't
mean that they do not try to make it *look* as if its "absolutily
neccessary" though :-) ).

I have to say though that I'm not really a "social media" kind of person.
YMMV.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


-- Origional message
Ann Dunham schreef in berichtnieuws
...
I'm trying to figure out and document how to set up Firefox for privacy on
WinXP due to data-mining attempts in web pages that I frequent.

It's complex as can be, so to make it simpler, I ask that we each post a
SINGLE actionable suggestion in each post (not thousands of suggestions in
one post), so that anyone following this in the future can take it one
post
(suggestion) at a time.

Make sense?

The advantage will be that each post is actionably simple.
The disadvantage will be that there may be a lot of posts in this thread
over time.

Each post can then spur more information in a subthread, if needed.

Make sense?