Nothing new for those who surf the web, every time they visit a site, they leave traces of their presence that are visible in the directory or folder of temporary files of Internet Explorer, Firefox or all other browsers.
This post is more of a reflection on the fact that some not too honest sites can easily capture any type of information on the habits and tastes of surfers by looking at the history of the sites visited.
Advertising on the Internet uses, in a non-deceptive way, this system to publish advertisements relevant to the personal tastes of each one.
So if, for example, I go every day to visit or look for news on cell phones, I will probably see dempre more often appear advertisements that concern them, even if I visit a pc site.
Some other sites then, in a malicious way, after discovering that I like cell phones, they could capture more private information, such as the E-mail address and send me advertising and unauthorized spam.
But how do they do it?
In reality it is very simple and, if you think about it, all sites store something from previous visits leaving files called " Cookies " while browsers always store the history of the sites visited.
Some more powerful javascript that are present in some web pages, do not even look at cookies but directly scan the history automatically on the browser by seeing which sites have been viewed and how many times (which could not be done).
In order to have a proof of what I am saying, I invite everyone to go to the IP-Check site which displays all the privacy information that is detected when clicking on a test link on the main page.
It should even be noted that due to a vulnerability in the HTTPS protocol, a website may know which sites we have visited, even if we have cleared the history.
The proof is on the //zyan.scripts.mit.edu/sniffly/ site, to be opened with Chrome Firefox or Opera.
After loading, you will recognize, on the left side of the page, many sites that we have visited recently.
The trick used is also explained: nonexistent images from popular sites that use HSTS are embedded on the page.
If the site has been visited in the past, the browser recognizes the error of the non-existent image in a short time, otherwise it takes longer.
Based on this time difference, the page can understand if we have been on a site or not.
This technique is able to detect the fingerprints of each user on a site protected with https and manages to extract the list of sites visited.
The bad thing is that this trick works even if you clear the browser history, because it reads information from the https security certificates, which cannot be deleted from the browser settings.
The only way to make the sniffing technique fail is to use the https Everywhere extension on the browser, which becomes increasingly important and fundamental to protect connections to sites that require the insertion of passwords and sensitive information.
Even more innocently, you can think of when you click on links and they color differently and, for example, the blue link turns purple after clicking it).
Returning the next day you will notice that the link clicked yesterday remained purple because it remained in the browser's memory.
In principle, there is nothing wrong with that .
My opinion is that to surf the internet effectively and productively, you don't have to hide too much, as long as you walk on legal terrain of course.
In fact, going back to the previous example, I like cell phones, and given that a bit of advertising I am forced to see it almost everywhere, it may be preferable to see a targeted advertisement rather than one on typewriters or slimming gels .
Putting even the most private case, that of the search for a soul mate or that of search for images and videos of sex, if it were repeated for me, being directed to honest sites that deal with these topics may not mind me.
The problem is that the more you browse sites that would require privacy, the more intrusive systems that capture information and push exaggerated and tacky advertisements massively.
The solution to these problems does not really exist in an absolute way because if you arm yourself and if you navigate without leaving any trace of yourself, you would lose certain utilities such as the most trivial, that of finding your favorite sites having to remember them by heart or mark them on the pieces of paper.
Sometimes, however, hiding the traces of your internet browsing can be advisable and to do so just use the private or incognito browsing functions. present in every browser: Internet Explorer 8, Google Chrome, Firefox and Opera.
This mode prevents the browser from storing passwords, files and cookies to be made available for the future.
There are also extensions, for Firefox, Internet Explorer and Chrome, not to be tracked online by sites by blocking the collection of personal data
The Forget Firefox button closes the tab you are browsing, suppressing cookies and erasing traces from history.
READ ALSO: Clear history on Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge and IE
If you want to be even more hidden you can use the various methods to surf anonymously even if I do not recommend getting caught by the paranoia of being spied on and being relatively calm that if you do not go on minefields and use the internet with caution, there are absolutely no problems.
If then you have followed a bit of the safety advice contained in this blog, then rest assured that I have already entered it ...
But come on ... I was joking, don't believe the legends of a friend of mine who penetrates the PCs of NASA and who steals the passwords of Messenger or Facebook, I recommend!
This post is more of a reflection on the fact that some not too honest sites can easily capture any type of information on the habits and tastes of surfers by looking at the history of the sites visited.
Advertising on the Internet uses, in a non-deceptive way, this system to publish advertisements relevant to the personal tastes of each one.
So if, for example, I go every day to visit or look for news on cell phones, I will probably see dempre more often appear advertisements that concern them, even if I visit a pc site.
Some other sites then, in a malicious way, after discovering that I like cell phones, they could capture more private information, such as the E-mail address and send me advertising and unauthorized spam.
But how do they do it?
In reality it is very simple and, if you think about it, all sites store something from previous visits leaving files called " Cookies " while browsers always store the history of the sites visited.
Some more powerful javascript that are present in some web pages, do not even look at cookies but directly scan the history automatically on the browser by seeing which sites have been viewed and how many times (which could not be done).
In order to have a proof of what I am saying, I invite everyone to go to the IP-Check site which displays all the privacy information that is detected when clicking on a test link on the main page.
It should even be noted that due to a vulnerability in the HTTPS protocol, a website may know which sites we have visited, even if we have cleared the history.
The proof is on the //zyan.scripts.mit.edu/sniffly/ site, to be opened with Chrome Firefox or Opera.
After loading, you will recognize, on the left side of the page, many sites that we have visited recently.
The trick used is also explained: nonexistent images from popular sites that use HSTS are embedded on the page.
If the site has been visited in the past, the browser recognizes the error of the non-existent image in a short time, otherwise it takes longer.
Based on this time difference, the page can understand if we have been on a site or not.
This technique is able to detect the fingerprints of each user on a site protected with https and manages to extract the list of sites visited.
The bad thing is that this trick works even if you clear the browser history, because it reads information from the https security certificates, which cannot be deleted from the browser settings.
The only way to make the sniffing technique fail is to use the https Everywhere extension on the browser, which becomes increasingly important and fundamental to protect connections to sites that require the insertion of passwords and sensitive information.
Even more innocently, you can think of when you click on links and they color differently and, for example, the blue link turns purple after clicking it).
Returning the next day you will notice that the link clicked yesterday remained purple because it remained in the browser's memory.
In principle, there is nothing wrong with that .
My opinion is that to surf the internet effectively and productively, you don't have to hide too much, as long as you walk on legal terrain of course.
In fact, going back to the previous example, I like cell phones, and given that a bit of advertising I am forced to see it almost everywhere, it may be preferable to see a targeted advertisement rather than one on typewriters or slimming gels .
Putting even the most private case, that of the search for a soul mate or that of search for images and videos of sex, if it were repeated for me, being directed to honest sites that deal with these topics may not mind me.
The problem is that the more you browse sites that would require privacy, the more intrusive systems that capture information and push exaggerated and tacky advertisements massively.
The solution to these problems does not really exist in an absolute way because if you arm yourself and if you navigate without leaving any trace of yourself, you would lose certain utilities such as the most trivial, that of finding your favorite sites having to remember them by heart or mark them on the pieces of paper.
Sometimes, however, hiding the traces of your internet browsing can be advisable and to do so just use the private or incognito browsing functions. present in every browser: Internet Explorer 8, Google Chrome, Firefox and Opera.
This mode prevents the browser from storing passwords, files and cookies to be made available for the future.
There are also extensions, for Firefox, Internet Explorer and Chrome, not to be tracked online by sites by blocking the collection of personal data
The Forget Firefox button closes the tab you are browsing, suppressing cookies and erasing traces from history.
READ ALSO: Clear history on Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge and IE
If you want to be even more hidden you can use the various methods to surf anonymously even if I do not recommend getting caught by the paranoia of being spied on and being relatively calm that if you do not go on minefields and use the internet with caution, there are absolutely no problems.
If then you have followed a bit of the safety advice contained in this blog, then rest assured that I have already entered it ...
But come on ... I was joking, don't believe the legends of a friend of mine who penetrates the PCs of NASA and who steals the passwords of Messenger or Facebook, I recommend!
