To replicate:

Enable TrackMeNot.
Change default search engine to 'DuckDuckGo'
Restart browser.
Restart browser again.
Your default search engine has been replaced with Yahoo.com

Disable addon, repeat process, default browser remains the same.

WTF?

Love this plugin!

Good tool, but why do you recommend the add-on "web of trust", which is widely known to be spam?

Lack of privacy is a concern for all. Dithering privacy regulation(s) permit interests to snoop on internet users. Opening doors to surveillance, data-profiling & abuses.

If I understand correctly, TrackMeNot beclouds snoopers. Cleverly throws a monkey wrench in the snoop feeding-frenzy by inserting false leads (random internet transactions) into the data stream. Skewing the profile.

Runs quietly in background.
Give TrackMeNot a big fat attaboy!

Great,

- You can specify your own search engines
- You can specify your own keywords by adding your own RSS freeds


@Spiri81
check the Addon settings :-)

I use DuckDuckGo by default and try to only use Google when necessary. This extension though overrides Firefox' setting of the default search engine. I have to remove it.

The searches are based on news and popular searches and any rss source can be added

Version 0.9.1 keeps showing "error" the whole time. "Version 0.6.728.1-signed" works fine.

This is just what I was looking for. I was thinking about writing a program that ran in the background to do this same obfuscation thing, but this works just great. Ha! They take your data, use it against you.

This is how we fight back. They want data? Let's give it to them. Trillions of gigs of garbage. While you are at it, invest in an RFID wallet to put your phone in so that can't be tracked either. If enough people do this then the data will lose all meaning.

I Love it.

Does exactly what it claims - I only wish it came packaged as a service or daemon instead of a browser plugin.

Probably the best way to use it is from a VPN privoxy proxy server which would keep the creeps at arms length while you perform your "good deeds".

Trackmenot beats writing endless letters to Congressional representatives who ignore you, and if enough people used this product we really would have a chance of moving all NSA employees to burger king...or forcing these traitors to clean toilets for the rest of their lives.

Congress *will* screw off tax dollars - but at some point even they will demand results. Once their money goes - so does the NSA.

Here's a good tool for protecting proxy servers: http://drivevaccine.com/ (free version should work fine).

For Linux, you could always use a GRSecurity platform or perhaps even a liveCD.

Just reboot your proxy every now and then - the creeps can do nothing. Things get to hot - just quit using the proxy for real searches (find another path to the internet) - but allow your proxy machine to continue hammering them.

Meanwhile stab at the NSA by writing letters to Congress. You really never know what will finally turn the tide. Congressmen do love their jobs....losing it for creeps ain't gonna happen.

The "Use tab to search" feature won't let me exit Firefox! It keeps opening a new tab again every time I try to quit.

The newer versions of Firefox have eliminated the status bar, so I have no way of knowing what this thing is searching besides that buggy tab bar.

The black list edit box is ridiculously small. I have to manage dozens of black list words. This is like looking through a keyhole, it's so small.

Keywords need to be improved. Variations of blacklisted words are still being searched. That is unacceptable.

Fix these things and maybe you might have a decent add-on.

Opposite of what youre looking for; sure way to get you on many 'lists'. Out of the box this is set to randomly search keywords gathered from cnn.com's rss feed and others.

Here are some words it configured to search for first time:
DOGGYSTYLE, Cybersecurity, Terror turkey, ISIS, Spy, U.S.cuba, KKK black panthers, Transgender, Patron, 4yearold n.y., Could isis, Lone, Art sex pirelli, girl, Meet

Badly configured by default. Authors have had years to correct this and put in safeguards as standard and remove clearly BAD default feeds. As it is, it is designed to make you a target. Do not trust.

I love the concept of this extension, but it is so terribly buggy, I can't stand it. I have a huge number of empty log entries. Apparently, TMN has been submitting empty searches.

TMN doesn't work at all unless I enable "Use tab to search". But when I enable that option, TMN slows Firefox to an absolute unusable crawl. Also, when a new search is performed, the tab it's running in turns the loading animation on and off over and over and over.

Validating the RSS also doesn't appear to do anything. I get no feedback whatsoever when I use that function.

I'd pay $50 for a fully functional bit of software of this type.

Works as advertised. Light and runs in background, won't slow you browser. A very good idea to install.

Good idea. But it froze everything when I was trying to write a comment on Reddit (the first time I kept waiting for it to unfreeze, and then tried to use other programs while waiting but they froze too, so I tried hitting Control-Alt-Del and then Windows itself froze and I had to press the Reset button on the case. The second time I end-tasked Firefox as soon as it froze). After disabling it, I can write comments on Reddit without freezing; I don't wanna risk corrupting more files testing this.

I've used TrackMeNot for a few years without problems but since FF v34.0.5 a couple months ago to v35.0.1 now, it has been hanging when closing FF. It just wouldn't close without forcing it to by closing the process in Task Manager. Quite a hassle. But after disabling individual add-ons, I narrowed it down to the problem being with TrackMeNot 0.8.13. I'd like to see it get fixed as it seemed to work well before.

I like this extension. And I didn't get the 'hang' problem reported below. If you look at the latest development version listed below (3 Feb 2015) you'll notice that it fixes a 'freeze' error, perhaps the same.

Nice idea, however it seems to hang my FF when I close it / quit.

Tracked it down to this extension.. when i disable it, everything is fine and I can close FF without force-quitting.

Edit: down to 1 star as also their support link is retired.. is this still under development?

I see some reviews that claim the app is searching queries about porn. That is completely false as the queries are drawn from the NY Times RSS feed.

Good add on !
As one user recommended look into reddit for more search items.Plenty of sub-reddits to fill up Googles hard drives with.
Takes a person that wants to not be tracked to make this work more effectively .

Track Me Not is all kinds of awesome. With a little hacking it can achieve a bit more obfuscation.

However it is ABSOLUTELY necessary to change it from the default RSS list

^ That should be prompted on install as was once the selection of adblocking subscription by adblock extensions. Unlike Wladimir Palant there is no hidden financial gain for the developers. Wladimir Palant, developer of adblockplus, now profits from violations of user privacy in what he deems an acceptable fashion not much unlike google founders initial pledge of privacy defense now given only lip service.

Alternatively it would be nice to have the extension apply limited randomization of which RSS feeds are defaulted.

If correct TMN strategies are not self evident "too stupid to have freedom" might apply.

for email webPG is a start

prism break, xmpp texting OTR, zRTP

Nice shill jimmy22 but not good enough. It is obvious that you are paid by Google to scare people off from using this plugin.

It wouldnt be nice if the stupid goy all start using this plugin now would it? Then advertising and NSA agencies wont pay for private user data. Well i havent seen the plugin search for pipebomb and i doubt you will get swat raided for searching for pipebomb.

Your pathetic paid attempt to keep people from fighting google back is futile.

I like this add-on a lot. I have since replaced the default queries with a huge list of my own, and am happy with what has been sent to the search engines (nothing bad being sent like porn).

Unfortunately, there are a few things keeping me from rating this a 5/5. For one, the log file can get big (not too big though) if you aren't cleaning it up after every once in awhile.

Also, finding rss feeds for websites that aren't news sites or blogs can be rather hard, and it would be great if you could get phrases from things other than rss feeds. (for example when i search for a headphone review of headphones that my audiophile friend is raving about, it sticks out like a sore-thumb, since i can't find any good headphone-related rss feeds) Maybe I'm not looking hard enough, but it sure is upsetting. It would be great if we could make a list of strings in a .txt file that the program could also choose from, since making an rss feed specifically for the purpose of making the TMN searches more diverse is way to much work.

That being said, I love the idea of this add-on and think the execution of the idea is very solid.

P.S. pro tip for anyone looking to find rss feeds for TMN to use, I find reddit is a great place, as long as the subreddit is active.

I can confirm this is looking up questionable porn as well as some weird stuff like "pipebomb" etc. I only used the default RSS feeds so I don't know how some of these would happen. Is the intent to actually obscure those searches by making it part of everyone's profile history? If so that should have been stated in the download. Now I'm freaked wondering how long this was going on for.

Please do not mind the rating I gave. I'm just trying to comment. Although I installed this add-on once and played with it I had to uninstalled it because I was concerned about the queries it sent Google. I always worried about some porn or illegal porn query being sent to Google so I uninstalled it. I have no evidence that it sends these types of queries to Google but the concern was enough to uninstall it. Now I read the review below and see part of my concern was valid. Be careful.