Hello there, ladies and gentlemen, whenever we browse the Internet using a computer or a smartphone, we inevitably leave traces of our visit: our digital address, our IP address, or even, those famous cookies that we're asked to accept or reject when we visit a site. All this information is ultimately used to track us. most of the time, the aim is to pitch us advertising for products that are supposed to catch our interest.
To avoid this inconvenience, some found a workaround. And they've started using private browsing modes. But is it really effective Can we browse the Internet without being tracked?
Today, Michael from the Micode channel is here to enlighten us, in incognito mode. Hello Jamy And hello everyone. To uncover the truth, I'm going to start by explaining the genuine differences between classic mode and private browsing, Which is also called incognito mode.
There are 4 differences. Private browsing does not save your browsing history, so if you're looking to buy a gift for someone who shares your computer, it's very useful. Data entered in forms, whether it's your customer number or your email address for logging into Facebook, will not be remembered by your browser.
This is handy if you're surfing on a computer that isn't yours. Thirdly, the extensions you use are disabled by default. And finally, those famous cookies are also not stored by your browser.
There you go, That's all. How do I know? it's written in black and white when you open the window.
Or rather, white on black. So, If I understand correctly, once cookies are blocked, you're good to go, you can surf incognito. No, Not really, Jamy.
First of all, cookies are not the worst part of the story. A cookie is a text file, more precisely, a variable with a name and an associated value. And if they exist, it's for a good reason.
They allow storing small pieces of information used by almost all websites. The language we use, what we've put in our. .
. shopping cart on this or that e-commerce site even our login credentials for our email account, or any other online service. You know, the 'Remember me' checkbox.
Believe me, after the third time logging into your emails in one day of private browsing, you'll be tired of having to enter your credentials each time. In short, you've understood, A cookie can be quite useful. Until the day when advertisers saw it as an opportunity.
A golden one to get to know us better. The third-party cookies. Those are the well-known banners saying, 'Accept all cookies.
' Yes, I know them. In the beginning, cookies are set by the actual website we're visiting. That seems pretty logical.
But third-party cookies, as their name suggests, are placed by third parties. These are, for instance, highly influential advertising networks like Google or Facebook. These cookies allow them to know which pages we have visited, to determine our habits on the Internet, and to build a complex profile of our personality in order to display very targeted advertising.
to each of us. By creating highly practical and complimentary tools for website developers, These networks ensure they are present everywhere on the web. Thus, thanks to third-party cookies placed with the help of these tools, they are able to follow us almost to the letter on the Internet and to increasingly better understand our habits.
Here, for example, if I do a search to buy a new coffee machine on a specialized site, well, I will automatically be targeted on every site I visit over the coming days with relentless advertisements for coffee machines. It happens to me all the time, I'm fed up with it. if I may say so.
Yes, Jamy. It's a bit annoying. And it has a name, Re targeting.
We had fun testing it with a member of the team's profile on Facebook. It's impressive how much information this social network has meticulously collected about their interests. And it's exactly the same with Google.
So, Michael, Is just using private browsing mode actually enough to protect us from being tracked? Nope. Third-party cookies are highly effective in tracking us.
In private browsing mode, once we close our window, these cookies get destroyed. Some might think, It's all good. Unfortunately, it's not just third-party cookies that can track our activities.
You know, Jamy, whenever you sign into your Google or Facebook account in private browsing mode, Even though third-party cookies can't follow you, you're explicitly giving them the information. It's me, Jamy, who just logged in and I absolutely need a new coffee machine. All efforts are in vain.
Moreover, even in private browsing mode, our IP address actually remains visible, which is what enables our identification across the Internet. And whether in private browsing or not, it's absolutely necessary to display the website that we have requested. The IP address is a personal data par excellence.
It allows us to be identified. For example, it was through the IP address that the Hadopi law traced back to us during illegal downloading. There's also another method which can be used to track us without third-party cookies or our IP address.
It's known as fingerprinting. Our unique digital fingerprints. And, without a doubt, it's formidable.
What? really? my fingerprints?
How do sites manage' to lay hands on them. . .
Who's behind this? No, Jamy, I'm not referring to your fingerprints, rather those specific to your browser. Let me explain, for a website to display correctly, it needs to know a whole bunch of technical details about your browser: its width, the language used, our screen resolution, the presence of extensions, the list of installed fonts, and so on.
But when you put them together, all these seemingly harmless specifications add up to create the nearly unique fingerprint of my browser. Or similarly yours, Jamy, hence the comparison to fingerprints. Research carried out by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, known as the EFF, a respected NGO in the digital field showed that a unique fingerprint is present in eighty-three point six percent of our browsers.
It's highly probable that your browser, or specifically its fingerprint, is unique. Well, this unique fingerprint exists on our phones as well, and app developers, they understood it very well. In 2021, when Apple imposed its 'App Tracking Transparency', you know, that little pop-up that routinely asks iPhone users when opening an app, If they're okay with being tracked.
Well, those ad-supported apps, have watched their revenue collapse. In order to manage it, and to circumvent this measure, some developers, Have therefore decided to use your phone's fingerprinting technology, in order to identify you anyway. So, Michael, Can we say that private browsing is really useful?
Yes, Jamy, it's still very useful, but only in a very specific case. If, for instance, you're using a shared machine, a family computer, or a public computer. In this case, private browsing ensures that you don't stay logged into your email by mistake or accidentally reveal all your searches in the browser history.
Well, in summary what private browsing does, We can perfectly recreate the same conditions in conventional browsing by simply and thoroughly wiping out the history, cookies and all saved form data. However, If you're looking to effectively hide from your Internet service provider, your employer's network, big digital companies, targeted advertising, or even spies and various intelligence services, Using private browsing mode offers absolutely no more protection whatsoever, compared to regular browsing. Your browsing data is still accessible by third parties.
This is also very useful for the police who can seize your computer as part of an investigation. You think you've deleted your history, However, in truth, your data isn't securely erased. By using particular techniques, Investigators are actually able to trace back and recover your deleted data.
And this is known as forensic analysis. So, I guess that you've understood that, private browsing, should be distinguished from anonymous browsing. However, with the small image of a spy wearing glasses and their specific terminology of incognito browsing, web browsers are the first to perpetuate this confusion.
Google, with its Chrome browser, is actually being sued for deception on this matter. There's still one thing that's seriously bugging me. Is there really a way to stay truly anonymous on the Internet?
Yes, The idea would be to utilize an intermediary, a reliable third party, for this. Instead of connecting to a website in our name, with our IP address, we would do it through one or more intermediary servers. To cover our tracks.
This intermediary is called: 'a proxy'. To implement this technique, many will recommend using a VPN. A Virtual Private Network, which, to put it simply, involves rerouting all your internet traffic seamlessly through a secure intermediary server, Potentially on the other side of the planet.
It works, but it's essentially like moving the problem from our internet provider to our VPN provider. And I'm honestly not sure I want to trust a company based in Panama. On the other hand, there exists a somewhat unique and particular network, the TOR network, for The Onion Router.
It's a global and decentralized network, superimposed on the classic network we all know. Associated with its browser, it transmits each request to at least three servers, three randomly chosen proxies, like the layers of an onion. And it's really quite effective and secure in practice.
Finally, the most effective way to ensure no traces are left, is to leave as few as possible initially and to destroy everything upon leaving. For that, there are systems designed to be installed on a USB stick. You can then be protected regardless of the computer you use.
Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower himself, recommends using this particular system. You connect the USB stick to a computer, whether it's yours or someone else's, and from then on, all connections go through the Tor network. Nothing is stored on the computer's hard drive; everything operates independently.
When you unplug the USB stick, everything is immediately erased. It's as if you were never there. That's all well and good, Michael, but not everyone is Edward Snowden or an investigative journalist.
The best thing to do is to start by declining third-party cookies, and trackers. That would certainly be a very good starting point, and since the task is quite daunting, Well, there are browser extensions available that can effortlessly handle this job for you by automatically rejecting third-party cookies, and blocking trackers from taking action. Sure, you won't be anonymous, but you'll be less tracked.
There you go, Thanks for sticking around till the end of this video. it's indeed the greatest support that you could offer us. And if you like this kind of topic, Don't hesitate to suggest others to us, we'll take a very close look at it with Michael.
See you very soon, ladies and gentlemen with interesting and new topics.
