Third parties “Disconnect”-ed!

Asma Fazal_CEID 100_Module 4_Professor Guy Hoskins_May 28th, 2021

Disconnect is an add-on or an extension for Chrome and Firefox that helps speed up web browsing while making it safe and secure. This extension is designed to stop or block non-consensual third-party trackers and sites.

I used Firefox to browse on more than six sites for about 15–20 minutes. These sites included Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook, Twitter, Google, H&M, Sephora, and YouTube. On YouTube alone, I had 13 third-party sites trying to track me. One that is shown above is google ad services, which is not linked to any malware, however, they track user data to advertise products on YouTube catered to the user.

This data was only captured within a 20 min time frame. It is scary how many third-party sites I must be connected to on a full day of being on the internet. Thus, it is vital to understand how these things work in order to protect our privacy and data online.