Hands On With AVG's 'Do Not Track' Tool
Government-proposed Do Not Track policies would let users opt out of tracking by websites, and browser vendors have made some small efforts to help. AVG has gone further, adding an active Do Not Track tool to their security products.
The government's proposed "" (DNT) policies basically state that users should have the right to prevent websites from tracking their online activities, and browser vendors have jumped into the act. Internet Explorer offers Tracking Protection, while Firefox promotes the Do Not Track header tag, though PCMag's Michael Muchmore reports that . Starting today, however, AVG users can take "do not track" into their own hands.
As Service Packs for and roll out automatically, users will find an unobtrusive little eye icon in the browser that displays the number of tracking elements on the current page. Clicking the button brings up a list with details and also allows the user to block any trackers.
AVG Do Not Track in Action
I loaded up a pre-release of the service pack to check out the update. It's definitely unobtrusive. In Firefox and Chrome it appears at the top right, in line with the Address bar. IE users will find it to the right of the Tools menu, unless the screen resolution is under 1024 pixels wide. In that case, it hides among the extra toolbar buttons revealed by clicking the >> "more" button.
AVG DNT checks for ad networks and, by default, blocks those that collect personal information. It also detects Web analytics like comScore Beacon, Facebook Connect, and Google Analytics. Since these don't collect personal information it leaves them alone by default.
I didn't realize this, but any page with a social media button can track non-personal information about visitors to that page. AVG DNT treats social media buttons like Web analytics; it reports on them but doesn't block unless you request it.
Visiting a number of popular sites, I found anywhere from two to seven tracking items on each. Even PCMag.com had three - an ad network and two Web analytics items. The help page for AVG DNT online had five! It didn't have any ads, but included three social networking buttons and two Web analytics.
Fine-Tuning
The settings window gives you full control over how AVG DNT behaves. Internet Explorer users will want to turn on the option to pop up an alert when active trackers are detected, since the DNT icon isn't always visible in IE. By default AVG DNT uses the Do Not Track header to notify websites that you don't want to be tracked; I'd recommend leaving this option turned on.
The settings page lists all of the trackers that AVG DNT handles, with a checkbox indicating whether or not the particular item is blocked. You can tweak the setting here to allow or block specific trackers, if desired.
Just One Catch
This new feature looks to be quite useful. There's just one catch. You can't download and install the Do Not Track feature by itself. It's only available as a component of AVG's products. If you're on the edge between choosing AVG Anti-Virus Free 2012 or another , this feature may tip the scales.