Exposing tracking pixels: Can it be this easy?
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I am no expert on tracking pixels, but it seems to me these little pests are placed somewhere in the white background of web pages or emails. Because the background is white, these pixels are white so they would blend into the background and be virtually invisible. But I like to run a dark theme on my browser and Outlook. Suddenly the bright white pixel sparkles like a little diamond against the dark background. Has anybody else noticed this? I find it a little annoying that good companies resort to this kind of spying! :mad: It seems to be very prevalent. I get it in the emails from my chemist and on websites like the company that maintains our air conditioner. I would love comments from members who know more about the topic than I do.
Get me coffee and no one gets hurt!
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I am no expert on tracking pixels, but it seems to me these little pests are placed somewhere in the white background of web pages or emails. Because the background is white, these pixels are white so they would blend into the background and be virtually invisible. But I like to run a dark theme on my browser and Outlook. Suddenly the bright white pixel sparkles like a little diamond against the dark background. Has anybody else noticed this? I find it a little annoying that good companies resort to this kind of spying! :mad: It seems to be very prevalent. I get it in the emails from my chemist and on websites like the company that maintains our air conditioner. I would love comments from members who know more about the topic than I do.
Get me coffee and no one gets hurt!
1. I don't know if any internet-based email readers support this, but Outlook (the office suite version) allows you to NOT download pictures as a default. 2. If the people you do business with allow it, change your profile so that they send you mail in text format, rather than HTML format. You may miss out on the fancy graphics, but you will also miss out on the tracking pixels. 3. If all else fails, you can always install a HOSTS file like the one provided [here](https://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm#:~:text=You can use a modified HOSTS file to,the connection (s) that supplies these little gems.). This redirects all requests to download from known adware / tracking sites to 0.0.0.0, which effectively disables them. The problem is that you need to keep this updated on a fairly regular basis for it to do any good; the ad / tracking guys are like cancer - they metastasise all the time. :mad:
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
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I am no expert on tracking pixels, but it seems to me these little pests are placed somewhere in the white background of web pages or emails. Because the background is white, these pixels are white so they would blend into the background and be virtually invisible. But I like to run a dark theme on my browser and Outlook. Suddenly the bright white pixel sparkles like a little diamond against the dark background. Has anybody else noticed this? I find it a little annoying that good companies resort to this kind of spying! :mad: It seems to be very prevalent. I get it in the emails from my chemist and on websites like the company that maintains our air conditioner. I would love comments from members who know more about the topic than I do.
Get me coffee and no one gets hurt!
As Daniel suggested simply set your email client to show plain text and just ignore the HTML gibberish that pops up.
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I am no expert on tracking pixels, but it seems to me these little pests are placed somewhere in the white background of web pages or emails. Because the background is white, these pixels are white so they would blend into the background and be virtually invisible. But I like to run a dark theme on my browser and Outlook. Suddenly the bright white pixel sparkles like a little diamond against the dark background. Has anybody else noticed this? I find it a little annoying that good companies resort to this kind of spying! :mad: It seems to be very prevalent. I get it in the emails from my chemist and on websites like the company that maintains our air conditioner. I would love comments from members who know more about the topic than I do.
Get me coffee and no one gets hurt!
all your pixels belong to us! :D
A new .NET Serializer All in one Menu-Ribbon Bar Taking over the world since 1371!
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1. I don't know if any internet-based email readers support this, but Outlook (the office suite version) allows you to NOT download pictures as a default. 2. If the people you do business with allow it, change your profile so that they send you mail in text format, rather than HTML format. You may miss out on the fancy graphics, but you will also miss out on the tracking pixels. 3. If all else fails, you can always install a HOSTS file like the one provided [here](https://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm#:~:text=You can use a modified HOSTS file to,the connection (s) that supplies these little gems.). This redirects all requests to download from known adware / tracking sites to 0.0.0.0, which effectively disables them. The problem is that you need to keep this updated on a fairly regular basis for it to do any good; the ad / tracking guys are like cancer - they metastasise all the time. :mad:
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
DNS sinkhole like Pi-hole or similar is another way to cover your whole network, and makes updates to block lists easier, as well as custom allow/block list entries if needed. I run mine inside a docker container on a Raspberry Pi 4 along with a few other containers, works a treat!
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I am no expert on tracking pixels, but it seems to me these little pests are placed somewhere in the white background of web pages or emails. Because the background is white, these pixels are white so they would blend into the background and be virtually invisible. But I like to run a dark theme on my browser and Outlook. Suddenly the bright white pixel sparkles like a little diamond against the dark background. Has anybody else noticed this? I find it a little annoying that good companies resort to this kind of spying! :mad: It seems to be very prevalent. I get it in the emails from my chemist and on websites like the company that maintains our air conditioner. I would love comments from members who know more about the topic than I do.
Get me coffee and no one gets hurt!
It only works because the senders are using white tracking pixels. Do an invisible tracking pixel (aka a png with zero alpha channel) I strongly suspect light or dark mode, you won't see the tracking pixel. The safest way is to simply block all images from downloading without permission, and then assume that if you give the images permission to download, then the other side knows you've read the email.
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I am no expert on tracking pixels, but it seems to me these little pests are placed somewhere in the white background of web pages or emails. Because the background is white, these pixels are white so they would blend into the background and be virtually invisible. But I like to run a dark theme on my browser and Outlook. Suddenly the bright white pixel sparkles like a little diamond against the dark background. Has anybody else noticed this? I find it a little annoying that good companies resort to this kind of spying! :mad: It seems to be very prevalent. I get it in the emails from my chemist and on websites like the company that maintains our air conditioner. I would love comments from members who know more about the topic than I do.
Get me coffee and no one gets hurt!
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1. I don't know if any internet-based email readers support this, but Outlook (the office suite version) allows you to NOT download pictures as a default. 2. If the people you do business with allow it, change your profile so that they send you mail in text format, rather than HTML format. You may miss out on the fancy graphics, but you will also miss out on the tracking pixels. 3. If all else fails, you can always install a HOSTS file like the one provided [here](https://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm#:~:text=You can use a modified HOSTS file to,the connection (s) that supplies these little gems.). This redirects all requests to download from known adware / tracking sites to 0.0.0.0, which effectively disables them. The problem is that you need to keep this updated on a fairly regular basis for it to do any good; the ad / tracking guys are like cancer - they metastasise all the time. :mad:
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
Thunderbird also supports that (image blocking) and javascript/cookie blocking which you should also activate. Same thing goes for the browser. Personally, I only activate some cookies/javascript for sites I (maybe naively) trust. On some sites, having javascript blocked is even an improvement since you can read all the text, although unformatted, while with it active you get a lot of images/videos/advertising that, besides slowing everything down to a crawl, prevent you from reading until you accept their cookies or sign up.