NoScript will show requested connections for a website. Wilders is one of the very few sites that has no "extras".
Connections to 3rd parties from a lot of news sites I find to be the worst. Wilders is light and snappy.
The article is a little innacurate to say the 25 third party sites are for content. Usually just two or three provide content. The rest are pushing ads and snooping. I think the reason it is rarely discussed is because it is the corporate business model that no one wants to stick their neck out and publicly criticise.
You know what I've never understood? After websites are loaded you can still see the browser making connections, so what the hell are these connections for? There is also no streaming of any kind of data, so it shouldn't be possible, yet browsers continue to download and upload data.
It's all thanks to the Web 2.0 hype, aka "web as a platform". And that can of worms was started when they introduced XMLHttpRequest (or "AJAX" for marketing heads) object. https://www.w3schools.com/xml/ajax_xmlhttprequest_create.asp And to add to top of that, most browsers of course have their own various telemetry stuff that they do in a background and user needs to usually opt-out.
I personally don't have the impression that these connections are used for telemetry. I think it's indeed because of AJAX, a lot of sites will continue to exchange data, even if there is no good reason for it, freaking hate it.
Yeah, I don't understand it either why seemingly static web page needs to have connections running in a background for no good reason (for example, I see several "xhr" request in Ublock Origin log when visiting some sites). At least most of the firefox own stuff can be silenced with this: https://github.com/pyllyukko/user.js/ It's just insane what the FF sends .... Note: user_pref("privacy.clearOnShutdown.openWindows",true) needs to be commented out from that user.js
How can I conveniently observe how much of this and what crap is going on? Sometimes I run Moo0 Connections Watcher and their file Monitor (and TCP View) et cetera. Until I shake my head or get ticked off. Non-stop...
Well, if you use FF then just install uBlock Origin extension (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/) and open it's settings and from there "Open the logger". Go to some google owned site for example: And from the logger view you will see all the bad stuff highlighted with red. Here youtube for example: And here washington post tracking you, including the video trackers they have embedded into their page: EDIT: Please take a note how they are using https with their trackers these days: That's why tracker blocker built right into the browser (or with the help of extension) is always better than solutions outside of browser. EDIT2: However, outside solutions are not completely useless. If some domain is known to be nothing but ad delivering platform (doubleclick.com for example) then it, and all it's subdomains can be blocked much much more earlier, on a DNS level by installing own local DNS caching server to, say, router made of Raspberry Pi. So best and most complete defense is to use both: Block as much as possible of the *hit domains on a DNS level on your router and anythings else that get's slipped with the browser tracker blocker.
Thanks Stefan!! I do have ublock installed. Just checked and I see it - forgot Logger. cheers and thanks for all your effort
