Most people who have been using the internet for any length of time are only too aware that web sites are able to track your online activities by using cookies. This is information that is incredibly useful to advertisers, but there are steps you can take to help protect yourself. With the ever increasing popularity of social networks there is a new breed of tracking in the form of ‘like’ buttons – and this is something that ShareMeNot can tackle.

There are very few internet users who do not have a Facebook account, but there are numerous other social networks such as Google+, LinkedIn and many more. Many of these have their own site integration buttons that you have no doubt seen adorning the pages of many sites you visit – they will give visitors the options of ‘liking’ the current page on Facebook, or sharing it via some other means.

ShareMeNot

This in itself sounds useful, but the truth of the matter is that even before you click one of these buttons, it is likely that the various social networks know where you are online. This is where ShareMeNot comes into play. This is an extension that is available for Chrome and Firefox and it effectively blocks the functionality of these social networking buttons unless you explicitly choose to use them.

Being placed in control over how social networks make use of information they are able to gather about you is something that is out of your hands to some extent, but it is possible to limit what information they have access to. ShareMeNot is not just a tool for the paranoid – it is useful for anyone that has privacy concerns. As there are undoubtedly going to be sites for which you do not mind sharing information, you have the option of setting up a list of exceptions, but with the extension installed the default setting ensures that data is not shared – unless you say otherwise.

You can find out more and download yourself a copy of the browser extension by paying a visit to the ShareMeNot for Chrome or ShareMeNot for Firefox review pages.