FireFox add-on called "Collusion"

[GreyGeek]

Tracks who is tracking you and produces a graphic result when requested by clicking its icon in the lower right corner of your browser. I have had it running for about 30 minutes. Here is what it shows tracking me:

http://ubuntuone.com/0lXMudze3rpqZ8esUU2ofz



And you wonder why your Internet connection can be slow at times?

[67GTA]

This is interesting. So far I have Kubuntu forums and skype.com tracking me. I have a feeling this add on will make me want to wear a foil hat!

[Goeroeboeroe]

That's a really nice add-on. I tested my security with it. First I disabled everything and my screen looked like yours after about half an hour.
Than I restored my hosts file (I use the one from mvps). Almost half of the icons disappeared.
Enabled NoScript: about half of the remaining disappeared.
Enabled Ghostery: again about half of the remaning disappeared.
Enabled RequestPolicy. Only four icons of the Google empire survived, targeting each other.
So it proofs all those things really work. And with everything disabled my internet was really, really slow.

[GreyGeek]

..... And with everything disabled my internet was really, really slow.

And, the more of those trackers there are stealing your bandwidth and CPU cycles the slower you are. Some where in between is a maximum speed setting, but it may be beyond our control. When a web site queries an ad server, if the response times out the request will be repeated for a number of times. Waiting for a response from the ad servers is what is slowing down our web viewing experience.

If I didn't mind signing into all the sites I have accounts every time I visited them I'd use TOR.

If your viewing pleasure is satisfied just reading text then Lynx will turn it into a lighten experience.

[rms]

I thought adblock addon was doing a better job... the sound of cookies burst, at some sites, when sound is on makes me consider blocking all of them.

[SteveRiley]

Even with my ultra-fast cable modem, I notice a difference in browsing speeds when I enable or disable my host blocking script.

If you want to see just how complicated web pages are getting, check out WebPageTest.org. Enter a URL and wait for the test. Click the "first view" waterfall diagram. For example, using www.cnet.com, the first view:

* fetches 1.8 MB
* makes 174 requests
* opens 82 connections

Your browser will do the same unless you use some kind of host or ad block.

[Goeroeboeroe]

The hosts file gives another advantage, besides simply blocking ads, tracking cookies, etc. Lots of ads are in flash, and flash really slows down a site. It's not only the extra request, it's flash itself. Maybe it's something typically Dutch, but all big newspapers here for example have ads in flash.
By the way, I removed Ghostery and use now Do Not Track Plus. Ghostery was sold to an advertising company. It still worked, but it gave me always a bit creepy feeling: an ads company protecting you from being tracked...