Your Browser Is In the Broadcasting Business

By | May 25, 2017
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Your Browser Is In the Broadcasting Business

No matter if you use Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Internet Explorer, or Opera, your browser’s in the broadcasting business. And it’s not broadcasting comedy shows, or breaking news, or even classic rock. It’s broadcasting a lot of information about you and your computer.

Every time you visit a web site, your browser broadcasts your operating system, your IP address, your ISP, your location, and even the names of the fonts installed on your PC.

Don’t worry, this is not something new, and it has nothing to do with the government relaxing privacy laws, your browser’s been in the broadcasting business for many years.

Would you like to see what your browser’s broadcasting about you? Are you sure?

Cloudeight InfoAve
Above: My Chrome browser broadcasting a lot of info about my PC, including the fonts I’ve installed. But it’s not just Chrome… it’s your browser too!  

Now don’t get all paranoid, because, as we’ve said this isn’t new. If you’ve spent 1000 hours browsing the Web, then you’ve been broadcasting 1000 hours. Oh, yes, you Tor and VPN users… much of this article does not apply to you, but it does apply to the majority of us who just wanna browse the Web.

Are you ready to see what you’re browser’s broadcasting right now? Are you sure? OK…

Visit this page to see what your browser’s broadcasting right now.

The company that provides this page makes a browser that supposedly does not broadcast and is even supposed to have a built-in VPN. We have not tested it, therefore ware not recommending it. Right now it’s for Android only, but they say it’s coming for iOS and Windows soon. We’ll check it out soon. In the meantime, check out the page and see what your browser is broadcasting. If you decide to try the browser, you do so on your own – we have not tested it. The page, however, is safe.

Our broadcast is over. Over & out!

ADDENDUM:

What if your ISP shows up as blacklisted?

My ISP is blacklisted by one of the many spam reporting “services”. back in the old Internet days of yore, some of these so-called services had a reputation for assisting users in the fight against spam. We are actually surprised these out-of-date services still exist.

These services have nothing to do you personally – it won’t affect your ability to send/receive mail. In fact, your own ISP’s spam filters may be even worse (if that’s possible) than these ridiculous spam clearing houses.

In short, the purpose of this article was not to alarm you or cause you to worry about something that does not matter. If you’re going to worry, worry about things that are important – like ransomware, malware, PUPs, and things you should be doing to avoid them:

  1. Use Emsisoft (or good security software)
  2. Don’t click links in spam or in email from senders you don’t recognize or which seem suspicious.
  3. Don’t fall for popup scams that tell you you’re infected and call Microsoft or some other support service. Legitimate warnings are not going to appear on your PC with phone numbers to call.
  4. Don’t get drawn in by one-click-fix scams or products which claim to be able to fix your PC and keep you safe from 100% of every threat out there.
  5. Keep your Windows computer updated.
  6. And most of all … use common sense

We published this article about the info your browser displays about you and your computer, just so you know… not to cause a panic about some obscure, outdated, meaningless spam service blacklisting your ISP. IGNORE IT!

 

 

9 thoughts on “Your Browser Is In the Broadcasting Business

  1. Janis

    Hmm, it says my IP is black listed. What does that mean?

    Reply
    1. Barb

      Nevermind about the TLS designation, it’s explained on the results page but still not sure about IP being blacklisted. Thx.

      Reply
  2. Dawn Campbell

    It certainly does give out a lot of info. But in today’s world what else is new. Maybe we should go back to Bulletin Boards. Wasn’t that a carefree, stress free time. As long as my security is high I am hopeful I don’t get anything malicious!

    Reply

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