Do you know who's tracking your movements online? A plug-in for the Firefox web browser called Lightbeam creates an at-a-glance visualisation showing which third parties want to grab your data.
Every time you access a website, numerous companies – website analytics firms, online advertisers or social media buttons – upload cookies to your computer to log which sites you visit and what you do once you are there.
Lightbeam is designed to show users exactly what is going on behind the scenes. When you log on to a site, it records every website that your computer is connecting with – often more than just the one you intended to visit.
It then creates visualisations, ranging from a list to a clock-like design, displaying the information.
"Many people don't understand all of the ways the web works – or all of the pieces of the web or interactions that aren't immediately visible," says Alex Fowler, global privacy and public policy leader at Mozilla, the firm that makes Firefox. "Lightbeam helps us educate users, by shining a light on what we couldn't otherwise see."
Read more - http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24477-firefox-plugin-reveals-who-is-tracking-your-surfing.html#.UnKiWKFraM9
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