Eva Galperin

EFF

In recent years, online tracking companies have begun to monitor our clicks, searches and reading habits as we move around the Internet. If you are concerned about pervasive online web tracking by behavioral advertisers, then you may want to enable Do Not Track on your web browser.

Do Not Track is unique in that it combines both technology (a signal transmitted from a user) as well as a policy framework for how companies that receive the signal should respond. As more and more websites respect the Do Not Track signal from your browser, it becomes a more effective tool for protecting your privacy.

EFF is working with privacy advocates and industry representatives through the W3C Tracking Protection Working Group to define standards for how websites that receive the Do Not Track signal ought to response in order to best respect consumer’s choices.

The following tutorial walks you through the enabling Do Not Track in the four most popular browsers: Safari, Internet Explorer 9, Firefox, and Chrome.

Safari

On the menu bar at the top of your screen, click on Preferences.

Select the Advanced preferences panel, shown in the screenshot below.

Check the box at the bottom of the menu labeled “Show Develop menu in menu bar.”

On the menu bar at the top of your screen, click on Develop, shown in the screenshot below.

Click on “Send Do Not Track HTTP Header.”

Congratulations. You have enabled Do Not Track on your Safari browser.

Internet Explorer 9

On the menu bar at the top of your screen, click the Tools button, which is shaped like a gear.

Point to Safety, and then click Tracking Protection, shown in the screenshot below.

Go to the Manage Add-on dialog box, shown in the screenshot below.

Click Tracking Protection List, and then click the Enable button in the lower right-hand corner of the box, shown in the screenshot below.

Congratulations. You have enabled Do Not Track on your Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 browser.

Firefox

On the menu bar at the top of your screen, click on Preferences.

Select the Privacy tab, shown in the screenshot below.

At the top of this menu, check the box labeled “Tell websites I do not want to be tracked.”

Congratulations. You have enabled Do Not Track on your Firefox browser.

Google Chrome

To enable Do Not Track in Chrome, you will need to install the Do Not Track browser extension.

On the menu bar at the top of your screen, click on Window.

In the Window menu, click on Extensions.

Chrome will display a control panel which shows all of the extensions you have installed on your browser, shown in the screenshot below.

If you do not have any extension installed, click the Browse the gallery, shown above. If you have extensions installed already, scroll to the bottom of the control panel and click the Get more extensions link. These links will take you to the Chrome Web Store, shown in the screenshot below.

In the search box in the upper left hand corner, type “Do not track.”

Select the Do Not Track extension. EFF recommends the extension written by Jonathan Mayer and click “Add to Chrome.”

In the drop down menu, shown in the screenshot below, click “Add.”

Congratulations. You have installed the Do Not Track extension on your Chrome browser.

You can help support this information by voting on Reddit HERE.