This Tool Tells You Everything Your Browser Tells Websites About You
We all know websites collect information from us, either implicitly or explicitly. They get the information via the web browsers we use. You might not trust a shady looking website with your information but you will trust Chrome. The thing is, browsers are the information gateway that websites use. What every Browser knows about you is a web app that shows you the personal information stored by your browser. This information can be accessed by websites without you explicitly allowing them access to it. It also tells you what you can do about the information being freely available to websites.
Visit What every Browser knows about you and start scrolling.
Your browser knows some basic things about you such as your exact location mapped down to longitude and latitude, your current operating system and some hardware specifications. It also knows your local and public IP. The information is categorized and each section has preventive measures you can take to stay safe as well as the risks associated with it.
For the most part, the tool advises you to use private browsing. Unfortunately, for the average user that means a lot of inconvenience. Some of the information saved by the browser is harmless such as which OS you’re running but some of it is a security risk and can result in clickjacking, among other things.
The app itself tells you when certain information puts you at risk and when it doesn’t. Use it as a guide to determine what data you want to keep safe from websites. Remember that the information saved differs from browser to browser. The app doesn’t advise you to favor a particular browser over the other but switching browsers might be a reasonable compromise.
If you think Chrome is storing too much information, try switching to Firefox and run What every Browser knows about you again to see how much of a difference it has made.
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