Why is the Connect Lemmy app trying to track me? (Answered: It isn't)

No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 79 points – 12 months ago

screenshot of Duckduckgo app tracking blocker that has blocked 107 tracking attempts over the last four days

Hi all, relative newcomer here.

I tend use Duckduckgo as my main browser (Firefox if there's issues) as I do like the built in app tracker blocking (and the cookie management and email forwarding service!)

I was somewhat surprised just now to see that Connect (current Lemmy app) has been trying to allow tracking attempts by Google, Amazon and other such bellends.

Why is that? Surely we're trying to leave all that shite behind?

Thanks!

It is not. It has been discussed countless times already. The trackers are from the external sites youre visiting through Connect.

There's nothing connect can do about the trackers from the articles you're visiting using Connect.

If you're worried about trackers, you can force connect to open sites using an xternal browser that has tracker blockers features.

Thank you for explaining it to me. Happy to edit my original post,wouldn't want to spook users or tarnish Connect's name..

I use temporary containers in Firefox. Is a similar solution possible?

On mobile I have my default browser set to Firefox Focus, which blocks trackers and automatically deletes browsing data when you close the app.

Look into using a dns that blocks tracking. I believe Adguard offers a free one. Nextdns offers up to 300k requests free a month. Controld also offers a free trial.

Ah yes, DuckDuckGo, the company whose anti-tracker stance was called into question when their own browser was caught tracking its users, despite claiming it did not track them.

Source

I didn’t know that, thanks. What / who should I use instead?

As a browser? Firefox. The answer is always just Firefox. It's not perfect by any means, but it's the best in terms of privacy and ethics. It's not shady like Brave is, it's not Chromium-based like any other browser, and Mozilla is actively engaged in making the web a better place.

I've had the chance to discuss numerous times with people about other browsers, and I honestly don't get why they always look elsewhere, when Firefox exists.

P.s.: sorry about the tirade, I obviously don't have anything against you. It's just that Firefox has existed for 21 years and it has been consistently user-focused and privacy-centric and I really don't understand why people don't just use it - maybe because it's not as new and thus does not look as attractive as other browsers

Firefox for android also is also the only big name browser on that platform supporting add-ons

DDG is still probably the best option. Their CEO gave a pretty extensive explanation of why this is happening and how it's sort of unavoidable at the moment, though they're trying to change how things work.

For something that “just works”, DDG is still probably the best. If you don’t mind some technical work something like Searx seems to be more private.

https://docs.searxng.org/own-instance.html#how-does-searxng-protect-privacy

I think I saw this mentioned before and it's trackers on websites visited when clicking links on Lemmy.

I don't know much about how any of this works, but my guess would be the embedded browser on Connect hasn't been set up to block tracking? In which case you might try enabling the 'open links in external browser' option and see if you still get tracking attempts.