How to Remove Google Analytics from Search Engine Search

[Lionelgee]

Hello All,

I use Dogpile as search engine and I have noticed a couple of times lately that it stalls during the start of a search and results in essentially a blank screen. Just the status bar idling over and going to nowhere. Then at the same time I can see down on the bottom left hand corner the little words "Google Analytics" appears. I do not use Google search engines. Is there anyway of getting Google analytics away from the search engine - um preferably off my computer altogether. I do use Google Maps on my computer though. It might be the case of use one Google product and it gets the analytics nose into the whole computer.

Kind regards
Lionel

[BradC]

It's not "on your computer". People embed Google Analytics tracking into their web pages for various reasons.

I use a combination of uBlock Origin, Adblock Plus and Firefox built in "Enhanced tracking protection" to avoid most of it.

The "web" is a cesspool of privacy stripping technologies designed to monetize your data. It's also an arms race. One side is racing to defeat the tracking systems while the other is racing to develop different technology to track around the protection. The result is a slower, more bloated web experience.

Fortunately for those that profit from your data, the majority of "consumer" tend to be the "I don't care, just give me the cat video" types. Personally I blame AOL for lowering the bar, but if it wasn't them it would have been someone else.

[Tins]

It's not "on your computer". People embed Google Analytics tracking into their web pages for various reasons.

I use a combination of uBlock Origin, Adblock Plus and Firefox built in "Enhanced tracking protection" to avoid most of it.

The "web" is a cesspool of privacy stripping technologies designed to monetize your data. It's also an arms race. One side is racing to defeat the tracking systems while the other is racing to develop different technology to track around the protection. The result is a slower, more bloated web experience.

Fortunately for those that profit from your data, the majority of "consumer" tend to be the "I don't care, just give me the cat video" types. Personally I blame AOL for lowering the bar, but if it wasn't them it would have been someone else.

Yep. Personally I choose Brave to do the avoiding, but I'm toying with Firefox Focus on iOS.

Google is taking steps with Manifest V3. Pretty sure Firefox and Brave will get around that. Chrome and Edge sure won't. Safari will do things the  way so it's anyone's guess.

Google is the wooly mammoth in the room and thus are almost impossible to avoid, sadly.

[SBD4]

You can manage this through various software and services installed on each device on your home network as per what Brad and John mentioned. This can become cumbersome to manage if you have a lot of devices.

An alternative is to use something like Pi-hole. This is an open source project that when installed on your network, services all DNS queries (DNS = and address book for computers so they can find each other). It comes with an extensive list of domains (malicious/ad sites/analytics etc) which, when matched with a request from your computer, get sent to a black hole meaning you don't see it. You can customise this list to your liking.

If you have a technical bent you can install it on an old computer yourself or, if with in your budget you can get a ready made one sent to you. Note that you can also purchase your own Raspberry Pi and do the installation and set up yourself.

The nice thing about this solution is that you only need to manage that single device and it protects all your other devices connected to your network. It's not for everyone but it is effective.

Overview: Overview of Pi-hole - Pi-hole documentation (https://docs.pi-hole.net/)
Purchase: Official Pi-hole Raspberry Pi 4 Kit | The Pi Hut (https://thepihut.com/products/official-pi-hole-raspberry-pi-4-kit)

I personally use a much more heavy duty solution of pfSense with pfBlocker and suricata ... that is definitely not for everyone! Behind that are a multitude of PCs, Laptops, mobile devices, gaming consoles, IoT devices, servers etc. so managing internet access for all of these in one place makes sense.

This of course leads into a deeper conversation about security....