Facebook tracks the data of all users, including those who are not registered on the social network. Fortunately, there are parades to protect yourself.
Facebook is following you. This is nothing new if you are a user of the social network … More surprisingly, it concerns you even if you have not opened an account or that you do not use it! You must therefore be extra vigilant if you do not want information about you to be used by Mark Zuckerberg’s company.
The right reflexes to have
First of all, be aware that Facebook tracks you as soon as you surf a web page containing the “Like” and “Share” buttons. It then takes advantage of your cookies, these small information files that are stored by your browser, to refine your advertising profile. It is therefore advisable, when possible, to use private browsing mode, available in the browser menu, or to modify the latter’s settings so that it does not accept certain cookies. For example, in Chrome, click on the three small vertical dots at the top right of the screen, then click Settings. At the bottom of the page, click advanced settings, then on Content settings.
Then click on Cookies, then on Block third-party cookies.
Cookies are not the only way to record data about you and some sites use scripts that should be blocked. For this, the best solution is to install an extension on your browser. One of the most effective is uBlock Origin which is available for Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Safari. It is accessible by going, for example, to the Chrome webstore, then clicking on the button Add to Chrome. Then click on the button Add extension to complete the installation.
The uBlock Origin extension has all the filters necessary to block Facebook by default.
Another solution is to use the Privacy Badger extension designed by the EFF (Eletronic Frontier Foundation). It is available for Firefox and for Chrome.
Privacy Badger works in a novel way as the blocker becomes more and more effective as you browse the websites. To see which spies have been blocked, click on the badger icon at the top right.
Firefox for its part has a new extension designed by the Mozilla Foundation. Download Facebook Container and click on the button Add to complete the installation.
The extension is very discreet and only shows up if you go to Facebook. A small blue suitcase then appears to indicate that the social network is isolated from other websites and therefore cannot recover data without your knowledge.
Finally, a more radical solution is to change your browser and switch to more secure programs, for example Brave or Tor. You can also go to the website of the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance to refuse the collection of cookies by certain companies on your browser, in particular by Facebook.