How to Block Facebook from Tracking You

Facebook Tracks You

Facebook has become one of the most popular websites on the internet, 500 million people login to the site every day. While it is a great tool to stay in touch with your friends, Facebook is generating huge profits by targeted ads. But even if you are logged out and also if you are not a Facebook member – Facebook is tracking every step you make on the web by tracking the websites you visit via the like-button that has been implemented on almost every website nowadays.  Does that make you uncomfortable? Well, it probably should. But there is a simple solution.

Stop Facebook Tracking

While Facebook denies that the like-buttons are used to generate surfing profiles it is technically possible. The only way to be sure is to prevent third party websites you visit from sending information back to Facebook. This can be done by simply blocking Facebook services such as the like-button from being loaded in your web-browser. The perfect tool for that is Adblock Plus, a free browser extension available for Firefox and Google Chrome. Adblock Plus is a content blocker, depending on blocking filters it can eliminate any kind of content from the internet. Users can either create their own filters or they can choose from over 40 filter subscriptions that are created by members of the Adblock Plus community and define the elements that are to be blocked. Most people use it to block ads but it can also be configured to block tracking scripts and Facebook integration. All that needs to be done is subscribing to the Facebook Privacy List. If you are on Firefox and have Adblock Plus installed, you just need to click here and confirm the subscription to the filter list by clicking the “Add filter subscription” button.

Facebook Privacy

In Adblock Plus for Chrome, it is a little bit more complicated. To add a filter subscription, right click on the ABP logo in the address bar and choose “Options”.  Under the first tab there is a field to enter the URL of a filter list you wish to activate. Paste the URL of the filter list and click the “Add URL” button. An overview of ll available filter subscriptions can be found here, URL of the Facebook Privacay List is http://www.squirrelconspiracy.net/abp/facebook-privacy-list.txt.