How do websites track you?
Much of it is done by companies you never visit directly. Their code is placed on the sites you do visit, and it recognizes you from one site to the next to build up a picture of what you read, buy and search for. The usual tools are:
- Tracking scripts and pixels: code or invisible images that report each visit back to a tracking company.
- Third-party cookies: identifiers those companies store in your browser and read again on other sites.
- Tracking codes in links: tags added to the addresses in emails and posts so the destination knows exactly which link you clicked.
- Referrers: your browser telling each site which page you came from.
- Fingerprinting: recognizing your device from details your browser reveals about it.
How does AdFender block trackers?
It refuses them before they load. AdFender’s anti-tracking list is on from the start, beside its ad list, and names the tracking companies’ scripts and pixels. When a page tries to load one of them, the request is never made, so that tracker never learns you were there. That works in every browser AdFender filters, and inside secure pages too, with HTTPS filtering on.
What else can AdFender switch off?
Its Privacy page goes beyond blocking with five switches. All of them start off, so you choose, and on secure pages they work only while HTTPS filtering is on:
- Send a “Do Not Sell or Share” signal, which asks every site not to sell or share your personal information. Where privacy laws recognize the signal, businesses must honor it.
- Strip tracking parameters from web addresses, removing the known tracking codes from the links you open.
- Trim cross-site referrers, so a site learns which website you came from but not the page.
- Minimize identifying request headers, holding back device details used for fingerprinting.
- Block WebRTC, which can reveal more about your network than an ordinary visit. Leave this one off if you make video calls in your browser.
What the Privacy switches do explains each one, including when to leave it off.
How can you see which trackers were blocked?
The dashboard counts them under Trackers blocked. To see exactly which ones, turn on the Activity log and browse normally: every tracker AdFender refuses is listed live, with the rule that matched it. The log is kept in memory only and stops when you close AdFender.
Does AdFender send us what you browse?
No. All the matching happens on your PC: the sites you visit are checked against your lists locally and are never sent to us. What AdFender does send, for licensing and updates, is listed field by field in our privacy policy.
What does an ad blocker not stop?
- Your IP address. Every site you connect to sees the address your connection comes from. Hiding it is a VPN’s job, and AdFender works alongside one.
- Sites you are signed in to. A shop, social network or search engine you use while signed in records what you do there itself.
- Your internet provider, which can see which sites you connect to.
- Tracking nobody has listed yet, until the lists catch up with it.
Cookie banners are the other half of the tracking question: how to block cookie banners and notification pop-ups.