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I use Firefox. I use SUPERAntispyware.

I run it every few days.

There are always hundreds of adware tracking cookies found, and I delete them. But, of course, while they are active, they track me. Is there a way to completely disable them with one operation or do I need to disable every site individually?

Thanks.

Regards,

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2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote accepted

There is good information on how to do this here. The summary is that you configure your browser to only allow cookies from sites you choose to allow. Here is the firefox section from the link

  1. Click on Tools > Options > Privacy tab
  2. Uncheck the box next to "Accept Cookies From Sites". Then click on the Exceptions button.
  3. In the text box at the top where it says "Address Of The Website" type in the sites where you have log in accounts. You can save yourself some typing in Firefox because the WWWs are the default. Instead of typing "www.google.com" all you need to type is "google.com". Some sites will require you to type in a subdomain like "support.mozilla.com".
  4. Click on the "Allow" button to allow that site to save their cookies on your hard drive.
  5. Keep repeating steps 3 and 4 until you have all of your log in sites in there.
  6. When you are finished click on the Close button. DO NOT X OUT OR YOUR WORK WILL NOT BE SAVED!

edit: if you don't see these options but do see

Firefox will: Remember history change

change it to

Firefox will: Use custom settings for history

Additionally if you want to stop social networks from tracking your activity you can use the priv3 firefox extension.

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+1. Thanks for this. I followed the instructions and saw a different set of choices than are contained in this tutorial. I am using FF 7.0.1. There is an option to select, "Tell website I do not want to be tracked. I suspect this is a refinement added since the tutorial was published. I will wait to accept the answer as there may be another answer suggesting another way. Regards, – Xavierjazz Nov 4 '11 at 17:21
Spoo. Almost forgot. – Xavierjazz Nov 4 '11 at 19:55
1  
Where you see: Firefox will: Remember history change that to "Use custom settings" then you should see all those options – freedenizen Nov 4 '11 at 22:21
Thanks, have done, will see. +1 – Xavierjazz Nov 21 '11 at 23:54
up vote 1 down vote

You can opt out of tracking cookies for a lot of the larger, well-established and more reputable (as far as an advertising company can be reputable) companies by going to the Network Advertising website and using their opt-out tool. Just select all of the networks, then click "opt out", and they will set a cookie on your computer indicating that no additional tracking cookies should be saved for that network. Advertising networks will then check for that cookie when serving ads, and when they see the opt-out cookie, they will not save any additional cookies. It's not fool-proof, and you have to trust the word of the networks, but this is one way to do it.

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