gHacks technology news » web browsers http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:31:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Internet Privacy: Start Panic Tells You Where You Have Been http://www.ghacks.net/2009/04/25/internet-privacy-start-panic-tells-you-where-you-have-been/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/04/25/internet-privacy-start-panic-tells-you-where-you-have-been/#comments Sat, 25 Apr 2009 16:33:14 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2009/04/25/internet-privacy-start-panic-tells-you-where-you-have-been/ start panicInternet privacy (also know as online privacy or web privacy) has become a hot topic in the last years as companies, organizations and people with malicious intent try to gather as many data as possible about Internet users. Many users install security software on their computer system and as add-ons in their web browsers directly to protect their systems against various attacks including those privacy breaches.

Start Panic tries to raise public awareness for Internet privacy issues on their website. They have implemented a script that will gather information about previously used websites from the user’s web browser. Two aspects make this interesting. The first is that it is a cross-browser solution. It works in all major web browsers including Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome and Safari. The second aspect is that it will display results even if the user clears his web browser’s history, cookies and cache regularly. The current browsing session is recorded normally in all web browsers which usually have options to automatically clear these traces on exit only.

internet privacy

The process is started by the user who has to press the Let’s Start button. It can take a minute or two before the results are displayed. The list should contain the list of websites that have been visited in this browsing session. It might contain more websites if the user is not deleting the history regularly.

Little is revealed about how the script does its magic but it seems to rely on JavaScript. Anyone with JavaScript disabled in the web browser does not have to fear this privacy issue.

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