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Play hide-and-seek with Google Analytics
How much data do you think Google has about you and your browsing habits? Crazy amounts. Scary amounts. Volumes of data that make our veins run cold and keep us awake at night. But, hey, they kinda own the web, right? So what can you do?
Forty One of the most popular 100 sites on the web use Google to track their visitors. As it turns out, it's pretty simple to opt-out of Google Analytics data collection. Blog Boing shows us how, "For the more privacy cautious between us the solution for preventing any site's Google Analytics to record any information on us is quite simple. Just add to your hosts file the following lines:"
127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com
127.0.0.1 google-analytics.com
127.0.0.1 ssl.google-analytics.com
127.0.0.1 *.google-analytics.com
This little "hack" keeps your computer from contacting Google's Analytics data collection servers, thus keeping your data out of Google's incredibly wealthy hands.
Thanks BlogBoing!
Comments
6
Subscribe to commentstcgiantDec 14th 2007 1:28PM
Man, and to think Google used to be the good guys, too...
ThatGuyInTheBackJul 23rd 2012 1:18PM
There are no good guys.
RichDec 14th 2007 2:28PM
I did that, plus use CustomizeGoogle addon for Firefox. It has a option to prevent info being sent to GA. I also have the urchin.js in my Adblock filter list.
RPDec 14th 2007 11:24PM
Does Windows HOSTS file support wildcards?
> 127.0.0.1 *.google-analytics.com
BTW, on Windows, you can use 0.0.0.0, which is sometimes faster to timeout/fail:
0.0.0.0 www.google-analytics.com
DiddleDec 16th 2007 5:47AM
...or just add those to your BlockSite Firefox plugin.
RonDec 16th 2007 2:51AM
Google found some way to bypass those 4 lines in the HOSTS file.
tho I wrote those 4 line in my HOSTS file, google-analytics is still loading. (I can see Its loading in my win-xp Firefox)