How can you change your cookie settings in Firefox? To change your cookie settings:

1. At the top of the Firefox window, click on the Firefox button (Tools menu in Windows XP) and then click Options.
2. Select the Privacy panel.

If you click the check mark box under the “Tracking” section, you can tell websites that you do not want to be tracked. I have covered that in a previous article: How to Stop Website Tracking in Firefox

Under “History” you have the option to remember past websites you’ve visited, not to remember websites you’ve visited or a custom history setting.  When Firefox remembers your browsing history, it keeps track of form and search history, websites you’ve visited, downloads and cookies.

Last but not least, if you scroll down a little lower you will see the option to “Accept cookies from sites”. This allows you to control if specific websites can track you or not.  You can also accept cookies until:

• Keep until: they expire: Each cookie will be removed when it reaches its expiration date, which is set by the site that sent the cookie.
• Keep until: I close Firefox: The cookies that are stored on your computer will be removed when Firefox is closed.
• Keep until: ask me every time: Displays an alert every time a website tries to send a cookie, and asks you whether or not you want to store it.

When you are done with your cookie changing, always be sure to hit the “OK” button at the bottom of the options window to save your changes.  What type of cookie tracking changes do you like to make?

Well, to make a long legal story short – the FCC told all the browser brands out there that they need to come up with a way for users to opt out of being tracked for advertising reasons. So, of course, each browser is now pitching their own version of how to get this task done. 

This is how Firefox’s Do Not Track feature should work:

• Firefox user enables Do Not Track option in the browser
• The user’s browser sends the Do Not Track header to a commercial website
• The commercial website provides the content of the website
• Third-party advertisers also get the Do Not Track header and then display anonymous ads rather than ones targeted at the individual

Sure, it is nice to have that extra option for more privacy if you want it – but there are a lot of factors that have to agree with this system in order for it to work.  In a world of rainbows and kittens this might work, however in the real world I am fearful that it is doomed. 

Why do I feel like Do Not Track is not going to be successful?

• How are you going to regulate it? If somebody fails to put the header info on their website, will there be a government raid of their computers? What about foreign websites?
• To work, you need the user, the website and the advertiser to fall in line.  Seems like it is going to be hard to persuade them to change their websites so their advertising is less useful.

For more information on Do Not Track, I would recommend checking out the FAQ on it via the Mozilla Wiki.  Let me know how you feel about it.  Are you excited to see it put in place or do you think it is a waste of time?

Have you noticed your friend number going down recently? I always kind of wonder who would unfriend me on Facebook and why.  The Unfriend Finder user script will at least help me answer one of those questions.  It will keep track of who unfriends you on Facebook.

The problem is that once you have over 100 friends it is a little hard to keep track of them all.  The Unfriend Finder simply gives you the ability to know when they have unfriended you or their account.  Once installed, you will have 0 unfriends.  When a person removes you or deactivates their account, you will be notified on the new "unfriend" page added to Facebook by this script.

This Unfriend Finder also gives you the ability to know who has not yet accepted your friend request. So if you want to know who is ignoring you – this gives you the real time ability to do just that too.

You will need Greasemonkey installed to make the script work.  Once you have that in place though, head over to unfriendfinder.com and start finding out who is unfriending you on Facebook.

What is Do Not Track?

The Federal Trade Commission, in early December, announced it would promote the addition of easier "do not track" mechanisms in web browsers out there but will not seek legislation that makes adding these controls to any web browser out there mandatory. So, like with most topics in the on going browser wars between Google, Mozilla and Microsoft everybody is claiming they are doing something first to help protect the users out there.

What About Private Browsing Mode?

Ah ha, I see you have been paying attention.  Yes, Firefox does have the private browsing mode embedded into the browser.  This feature simply prevents information about your browsing activity from being saved to the PC.  It does not make you anonymous on the Web. 

So, Are All Cookies Evil?

No, not all cookies are evil.  To take a step back, browser cookies are tiny text files stored on your PC from browsing that are set to remember certain things about you. Cookies are most often used for website authentication, storing website preferences, link click tracking and more. The scare factor here has to do with cookies from third parties, such as advertisers, and their ability to track more information about you. Most browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer and Chrome, do allow third-party cookies by default, though they allow users to block them.

Here is how I have my own Firefox set up to clear browser cookies and history each time I start Firefox up:

• Clear Junk When Firefox Closes

So the good news is that more privacy protection is coming to Firefox and all other browsers in 2011.  The question is do we really need protecting?

Want to be able to track your productivity?

RescueTime, an add-on for Firefox will give you tons of analytical data on how, when and why you browse so you can do exactly that.

Once installed, the RescueTime add-on starts tracking what you do, but in a good way.  It gathers information on how you work, so you can see what percentage of your time is wasteful.  You can then compare your browsing efficiency with the rest of the world and dig in with the detailed stats browsing at your fingertips.

Need a break? It automatically stops measuring if your mouse and keyboard aren’t used for 2 minutes or more. It also allows you to manually stop measuring via a “pause” button.

Here is a little more about that add-on from the developers:

RescueTime’s worldwide user base has helped assigned productivity scores to tens of millions of sites. You can use our “detailed stats” controls to customize the scores to how you work. For example, if you’re a developer at Facebook, you might want to adjust Facebook’s score (which defaults to pretty low!).

So in all, you see your total Firefox time, what percentage of your browsing is “productive” and how your browsing productivity compares with the rest of the world.  The built in tweeting feature will also let you share how productive you’ve been (or not so productive you’ve been) with your Twitter followers.

Get Your Time Back

We all try to be productive during our work days (well, except for that last hour where all you feel like doing is checking your e-mail over and over) and RescueTime is an add-on that should help with measuring how productive you really are.  You can pick it up at the Firefox Add-ons web site, or learn more about it at RescueTime.com.

Ever wanted to know more about what you are doing while you are doing it?   You just did it, so why would you need to know what you did if you are the one who did it?  Exactly.  The add-on, about:me, makes sense once you see it in action.  It provides a fun way to see personalized patterns in browser usage.  You can spot trends in your browsing history and download activity. 

Here is a little more about the add-on from the developer:

The "Activity Stats" section graphs the websites you visit most, including the individual pages you visit most within each top-level site. This section also graphs your hourly browsing activity, which can reveal patterns in websites you visit most at various times of the day.

Appealing to some of the geekiest Firefox fans, the only way you can access the add-on in question is to type in about:me into the address bar.  It pays tribute to Firefox’s other hidden jewels such as about:config, and my favorite about:robots.

Get to stalking yourself today, and give the about:me add-on for Firefox a try.

What a minute, what was that?  Was it a bump in the night or a cookie in my browser?  Ghostery, the add-on for Firefox, will help you find out what web sites out there are keeping an eye on you, even when it isn’t overly obvious. 

Alerting you when you visit a web site with web bugs on it, Ghostery is a good extension to have if you are worried about your online privacy.  The web bugs in question are usually hidden scripts that track your behavior and are used by the site to understand you better.

Currently supporting over 130 services (with weekly updates and additions) here is a sample of the supported services:

• Google Analytics
• MyBlogLog
• Quantcast
• IndexTools
• SiteMeter
• Lijit
• Omniture
• CrazyEgg
• Snap
• Omniture
• Statcounter

Well deserving of it’s rank as a “recomended add-on” for Firefox, Ghostery does a great job at helping you keep an eye on what sites, ad networks and widgets are keeping an eye on you.

Some of the features of this awesome addition to any Firefox install include:

• Tracks browsing time across sessions
• Pauses automatically when you stop browsing
• Reset counter
• Pause toggle per window
• List ‘work’ sites that should not count
• Tooltip showing total time today, since last reset and since installing.

TimeTracker is a great way to keep tabs (not the browser kind) on yourself and the time you are spending Online.  For those of us who spend our days working within the Firefox interface it also is a helpful reminder to tell us we have worked enough and we might deserve a break.

Map+ – View the Yahoo Map of any address without having to open a new tab or window.

Get directions from Google Maps – Highlight any address on the web and get directions.

PackageMapping.com Extension – Track your shipments via a map to see where exactly that electric toothbrush you ordered is.

Map This – Launch a Google Map for any address you select on the Web.

All Your Maps Are Belong To Us – convert any mapping service URL or address to Google Maps. Good one for the Google Map fan boys.

Mini Map Sidebar – Mapping sidebar suite for Mozilla Firefox.

GDirections – Find where your going or where you have been on Google and Yahoo Maps based on your selected text and one of various home addresses.

Shazou – A unique Japanese mapping service and tool that enables the user with one-click to map and geo-locate any website they are currently viewing.

GeoLocateFox – Find where any web site’s HQ is with this tool. It tells you the location if contains GeoLocation metadata within the HTML on the web page.

GMiF – An addon for Flickr that will tell you exactly where those photos were taken via Google Maps.

Locator – Finds any location via Google Maps.

Geo – Another extension that opens a Google Map for a web site’s location if it contains GeoLocation meta data or is geographically marked with ICBM.

Know of another I might have missed? Leave a comment and share!

• NewsFox – RSS Reader
• Google Reader Notifier
• Netscape’s Digg Tracker
• Sage – RSS Reader
• Page Update Checker

Have another you love? Drop in a comment and let me know about it.