Filed under: Business, Internet, Security, Social Software
How to block Facebook Beacon
Look, we're as happy as anyone that Facebook has figured out how to start making money through advertising. But we're also as freaked out as anyone that one way the company will do this is by tracking your web surfing behavior and add it to your profile. Fortunately Nate Weiner figured out an extraordinarily simple solution (for Firefox users). Just install the BlockSite Firefox add-on and block Facebook Beacon.
Weiner was playing an online game the other day when he noticed a pop up window telling him that the web site was going to share his information with his Facebook profile. He had an option to say "no thanks," but like many people, Weiner figured he'd rather not get the message in the first place. So he found the offending requests were sent to "http://www.facebook.com/beacon/beacon.js.php." So you could either add that URL to your BlockSite blacklist, or better yet, add "http://www.facebook.com/beacon/*" to block any requests to the entire Beacon folder.
And now you have your privacy back. For now.
So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
