NSA revelations help CryptoCat and DuckDuckGo --

[truedelphi]

Apparently there are some consequences from average everyday users, for the Big Corporations that went along so willingly with the government's demand that the NSA gets to snoop:

Christopher Shoup, a college student from Victorville, Calif., has been encouraging friends to converse on Cryptocat, a private messaging program that promises users they can chat "without revealing messages to a third party." Shoup isn't worried that his own behavior could draw scrutiny, but said the mere idea that the government could retrieve his personal communications "bothers me as an American."

"I don't think I should have to worry," he said.

Cryptocat said it nearly doubled its number of users in two days after Snowden revealed himself as the source of leaks about the NSA's programs. Two search engine companies billed as alternatives to Google, Bing and Yahoo are also reporting significant surges in use.

DuckDuckGo and Ixquick both promise they don't collect data from users or filter results based on previous history. DuckDuckGo went from 1.8 million searches per day to more than 3 million per day the week after the NSA revelations came to light. Ixquick and sister site Startpage have gone from 2.8 million searches per day to more than 4 million.

- See more at: http://www.mauiweekly.com/page/content.detail/id/345734/NSA-revelations-reframe-digital-life-for-some-.html?isap=1&nav=5045#sthash.VzCQYXeQ.dpuf

[Warpy]

1. I use Ghostery

to prevent a lot of tracking. It's the only thing that got rid of a persistent pop up featuring some overenthusiastic female with a loud voice that would happen whenever I paged up or down on a web site. Malwarebytes and AdAware missed it, as did both antivirus programs I have.

Ghostery can be either stand alone or as an add on for Firefox.

[truedelphi]

2. Hi there, Warpy. Thanks for this tip! n/t

[Warpy]

3. Just be aware that some media players won't load

if you disable everything and it takes a while to learn which is which.

Still, getting rid of that loudmouthed female was worth it.