“We’ve shared plenty of tips on how to delete Facebook, remove third-party apps, control privacy settings, and delete bulk content. But what if you want to go even further?” Andrew Orr writes for The Mac Observer. “It turns out we can, and we can block Facebook completely by editing the hosts file.”
“In this guide we’ll be adding Facebook-owned domains to the hosts file, which will block them from our system,” Orr writes. “This is important because even if you deleted your Facebook account, Facebook can still track you around the web like Google does via its advertising platform.”
“So only go through with this guide if you deleted your Facebook account and want nothing more to do with it,” Orr writes. “This is basically the scorched earth nuclear option.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take:
SEE ALSO:
How Facebook made it impossible to delete Facebook – March 22, 2018
What to expect from Facebook’s Zuckerberg if he testifies before Congress – March 21, 2018
Why Facebook’s blatant disregard for users’ privacy could be very good for Apple – March 21, 2018
Facebook’s surveillance machine – March 21, 2018
Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg AWOL from Facebook’s damage control session – March 20, 2018
U.S. FTC reportedly probing Facebook’s abuse of personal data as UK summons Zuckerberg for questioning – March 20, 2018
The problem isn’t Cambridge Analytica: It’s Facebook – March 19, 2018
Apple: Privacy is a fundamental right – September 27, 2017
It’s past time for you to STOP USING FACEBOOK – March 19, 2018
Delete your Facebook: The only way to win the social game is not to play – March 19, 2018
How you access the super creepy data that Facebook has on you – March 12, 2018
Facebook asks users: Should we allow men to ask children for sexual images? – March 6, 2018
Study: Facebook is for old people – February 12, 2018
Mark Zuckerberg is fighting to save Facebook; announces major change to News Feed – January 12, 2018
Facebook developing ‘Portal’ gadget which will let it put microphones and cameras in people’s homes – January 11, 2018
Facebook is giving the US government more and more data – December 21, 2017
Former Facebook exec: Facebook is ‘destroying how society works’ – December 11, 2017
Apple’s cutting-edge ‘differential privacy’ is opt-in – June 24, 2016
Apple’s cutting-edge ‘differential privacy’ offers unique option for technology users – June 20, 2016
Apple’s use of cutting-edge tech will peek at user habits without violating privacy – June 16, 2016
Apple unveils iOS 10, the mother of all iOS releases – June 13, 2016
Apple previews major update with macOS Sierra – June 13, 2016
Apple seeks to use AI to keep Google off your iPhones, iPads, and Macs – June 15, 2016
Edward Snowden: Apple is a privacy pioneer – June 5, 2015
Tim Cook gets privacy and encryption: We shouldn’t surrender them to Google – June 4, 2015
Tim Cook attacks Google, U.S. federal government over right to privacy abuses – June 3, 2015
The price you’ll pay for Google’s ‘free’ photo storage – June 3, 2015
Apple CEO Tim Cook champions privacy, blasts ‘so-called free services’ – June 3, 2015
Passing on Google Photos for iOS: Read the fine print before you sign up for Google’s new Photos service – June 1, 2015
Why Apple’s Photos beats Google Photos, despite price and shortcomings – May 30, 2015
Is Apple is losing the photo wars? – May 29, 2015
How Google aims to delve deeper into users’ lives – May 29, 2015
Apple CEO Cook: Unlike some other companies, Apple won’t invade your right to privacy – March 2, 2015
Survey: People trust U.S. NSA more than Google – October 29, 2014
Edward Snowden’s privacy tips: ‘Get rid of Dropbox,” avoid Facebook and Google – October 13, 2014
Apple CEO Tim Cook ups privacy to new level, takes direct swipe at Google – September 18, 2014
Apple will no longer unlock most iPhones, iPads for government, police – even with search warrants – September 18, 2014
U.S. NSA watching, tracking phone users with Google Maps – January 28, 2014
U.S. NSA secretly infiltrated Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide, Snowden documents say – October 30, 2013
Google has already inserted some U.S. NSA code into Android – July 10, 2013
Court rules NSA doesn’t have to reveal its semi-secret relationship with Google – May 22, 2013
This is silly. If you don’t want to use Facebook, don’t use it. If you find you must, don’t use your real name. Use an anagram or something. Don’t provide real employment or school data, or age or anything.
It’s more complicated than that. As the article points out:
…Even if you deleted your Facebook account, Facebook can still track you around the web like Google does via its advertising platform.
There is the concept of The Evercookie. With time, the ways to establish an evercookie have expanded. Even with all traceable data wiped off your device, comparison of currently available data from your browser to previous data can theoretically identify you individually. Therefore, to be thorough, further strategies are required to establish anonymity. These include using a reliable VPN, encrypted DNS queries (if your VPN doesn’t already provide the service), using the TOR Onion network, faking your browser identity and your device MAC ID. Obviously, that’s beyond any average user’s comprehension or abilities. It also slows down your bandwidth and may tick off more totalitarian dickhead ISPs. And there may we’ll be further ID factors to mitigate.
My general philosophy is to balance security strategies with plain old confusing, mixed up internet behavior to annoy the marketing parasites, which of course can be a source of fun and retribution, if you’re into such things. 😉
(This time, it’s Spell Catcher’s fault. I’m not scapegoating!)
…And there may WELL be further ID factors to mitigate.
The last thing they care about is your name and if you think you have to tell them where you work or go to school for them to know you are kidding yourself. Location data of your device and where you go on the web as well as what you search for. The are building highly accurate profiles even if you tell them nothing accurate about you.
That’s not effective. If you value privacy, you need to firewall Facebook and other underhanded analytics firms. They have a dossier on you whether you have an account or not.
The alternative for me would email but it’s anachronistic since most of my artists friends use FB. Some of my friends are moving to mewe.com. I think I may but my ability to communicate would suffer.
thanks for this story, MDN.
I had to use nano because the TextEdit process never unlocked the file at /private/etc/hosts while running the latest beta Mac OS. Now is there other web lists for Google and the other social media animals who also track our every move?
The TextEdit rigamarole also did not work for me, SIP disabled, but etc/host still locked.
Using Nano made the job quick and easy.
That would be so groovy if a list of domains for Google has been collected. Could make for a very long list of domains. The FaceBook list was 895! Zounds! So many tentacles!
Thanks Mark. 😛