Tag Archives: privacy settings
“Industry Leading” Browser Privacy Shot Down by Microsoft Internally
Posted on 02. Aug, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 
1 Comments
The Wall Street Journal reported today that during the development phase of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer8 in 2008 there were privacy features added to the browser that would have been superior to those that we see on the market today. During a study conducted by the Journal, fifty of the top websites in the world were tested for their installation of tracking technology, and the results were not very good, with all of them installing some sort of way to track users.
Back in 2008, which was incidentally the same year that Google released its Chrome browser, there was an internal debate within Microsoft whether or not to allow users the ability to be prompted for privacy settings during start-up of the browser. As we all know now, that simply is not the case with IE, which is used by most people on the web nor is it with most other browsers on the market today.
I’m conflicted on what this means for all of us. Sure, browsers are free for us to use, but in return for the convenience we are being tracked all over the web no matter what we do. This information is used by companies like Google to be able to target ads towards us. The most concerning is the fact that most people don’t know how much data is being mined for information on their browsing habits and other possibly personal information.
This is going to be problematic as the web pervades our lives into smartphones, internet-enabled devices and cloud computing devices. What is the remedy for this ever-growing problem? Is it any surprise that the FTC today is suggesting a “do not track” list for the internet?
Chrome 4.1 Brings Translate to Everyone
Posted on 18. Mar, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments
The Chrome releases blog yesterday announced an update to Chrome 4, bringing the latest stable version to 4.1. While 4.1 has been out in beta for some time, everyone now will have the features on Chrome 4.1. What’s interesting to note is that now, like Chrome browser 5, Chrome 4.1 has Google translate built in. Prior to these features being inherent to the browser itself, you had to have the Google Translate Extension in order to use it.
What’s great about the translate feature is that you can also set the languages that it does not translate for. As an example, if you speak other languages than English, you can set the translate feature to be disabled if you so choose. This can be done in Options when you click on the “Under the Hood” tab and go to the” Change font and language settings” button.
I’ve written a more extensive post on how the translation feature works in Chrome browser, and you can check it out right here. This was a post I did that originally was for Chrome 5, but it fits the topic just the same.
There are a few other things that Chrome 4.1 brings to the table. Just like Chrome 5, content settings have been expanded. This means that users have more control over what they do or do not see while browsing the web. This gives you the ability to set exceptions for certain sites, as well as the ability to turn off cookies, image downloads and the ability to turn off JavaScript. You can do all this in Options when you click on the “Content settings” button in the “Under the Hood” tab.
If you already have Chrome 4, you will be updated to 4.1 via an automatic update. If you’re not using Chrome, go here. It will detect you operating system and allow you to download the appropriate version. So try it. You know you want to.
