Whenever we surf the Web, we leave we private data opened to being snooped upon by Web sites. They can track your online travels, know what operating system and browser we're running, find out our pc name, uncover the last sites we've visited, examine we history list, delve into your cache, examine our IP address and use that to learn basic information about us such as our geographic location and more. To a great extent, our Internet life is an open book when we visited.
Sites use a variety of techniques to gather and collate this information, but the two most basic are examining your IP address and placing cookies on your PC. Matching your IP address with your cookies makes it easier for them to create personal profiles.
If you'd like to see what kind of information sites can gather about you, head to these two sites, which peer into your browser and report what they find.
- Privacy Analysis of Your Internet Connection gathers and displays basic information, such as your operating system, screen resolution, what site you previously visited, general system setup and so on.
- BrowserSpy delves even deeper into your system and even reports on whether you have certain software on your system, such as RealPlayer and Adobe Acrobat, including version information.
