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Test Your Online Privacy Protection with EFF’s Panopticlick

“The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) launched new online tracker-testing in its Panopticlick tool today, helping you analyze the privacy protections in your Web browser. When you visit a website, online trackers and the site itself may be able to identify you, and the records of your online activity can then be distributed among a vast network of advertising exchanges, data brokers, and tracking companies. Many people install ad- or tracker-blockers to try to protect themselves, but it can be hard to know how effective they are. Panopticlick will check your browser and your add-ons and assess the privacy protections users have in place. It can also suggest remedies for under-protected browsers. But even if you have strong tracker blocking installed on your computer, you could still be identified by what’s called a “browser fingerprint.” That’s the combination of factors such as your operating system, your browser, and plug-ins.  Panopticlick also analyzes the uniqueness of your browser to see if you are still at risk from this kind of data-gathering, even if you have privacy-protective software installed.”

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