Ghostery.com – Finding Web Bugs The Easy Way
Ghostery is a Firefox extension that plays out a very specific role, namely informing you about the web bugs used by any site that you visit. As it is explained online, a web bug can be defined as a graphic on websites or e-mail messages that are used to monitor who is reading what.
A web bug is often invisible to the human eye, as they tend to be just 1-by-1 pixel in size. This is so because the idea of such monitoring processes is to run under cover of darkness.
Whenever a bug is viewed, some specific information is sent to a server. This includes the IP address of the computer that fetched the web bug and the type of browser that the internaut is using, as well as the URL of the web image and the time that the web bug itself was viewed.
Obviously, such a as system has two main uses: 1) Garnering statistics about online traffic and web usage, and 2) Setting down banner ads as per the personal tastes of the user. This Firefox extension, then, will let you inform yourself about the ways information is culled from you while you are surfing the Web, and how to act in consequence. Note that Ghostery is available free if charge, too, so that if you want to see the invisible Internet this is a good chance to do so.
