How to disable Facebook tracking?

[Redacted]

You could use a hosts file. It will stop any attempt by your computer to make a connection to any of the sites listed in the file. This would be computer wide.
https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts has several different host files dealing with different issues: ads, social media, porn, etc.
They are kept up to date.

[Sparky]

Thanks!

[Redacted]

Just remember it's not "set it and forget it". You'll have to periodically do a manual update. There's plenty of info on the web about how to use hosts.

[Sparky]

Yes, will do. I'm reading up on it, I have used host files before but didn't think to search for this type of solution in this case.

[handy]

Sparky, there are settings in the Brave browser config' that allow you to block social media (amongst other things), these are all switched on/off by the user in the config' screen:

Social media blocking

Allow Google login buttons on third-party sites
Learn more
Allow Facebook logins and embedded posts
Allow Twitter embedded tweets
Allow LinkedIn embedded posts

[Sparky]

I haven't used Brave, I'll give it a try.

[Michael-IDA]

Hi @Sparky,

Put the solved tag on the post that solved the issue (not your first post, unless you manually add the solution there)

Here's also a script to help with scripting. It was a work in progress so strip out my excessive junk and change what you need for yourself.

Best,
Michael

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash
# # # Description
# Grap Blocklists for use with /etc/hosts
#
# Script=get-hosts-block.sh
# Author=Michael
# Email=use website contact
# Website=http://www.inet-design.com/
# License=GPL
# Script repository=none
# Last Edit Date=Sun 30 Aug 2020
#
# Instructions:
# As root,
# - cp /etc/hosts /{$WorkingDir}/hosts.orig
#
# - Copy computer name line and any other addtions
#   in /etc/hosts to /{$WorkingDir}/hosts.mine.unique
# e.g.
#   127.0.0.1       {computer-name}
#
# - Fix all pathing/naming...
#
# Notes:
# I started building this for multipe lists, but found
# StevenBlack's includes Peter Lowe's (yoyo.org).
#
# If more than one list gets used, need to clean/combine them
# and will need to re-work 'hosts' building.
#
# Root crontab
# 45 6 * * 1 /home/michael/common/bin/get-hosts-block.sh >>/home/michael/common/bin/log/get-hosts-block.sh.log 2>&1
# 06:45 on Monday, that way if it breaks, it won't have broken much and can be fixed at start of day.
#
# # # # #

# # # Be Nice
renice -n 15 -p $$ >/dev/null 2>/dev/null
# # # #

# # # Include Standard Paths & Functions
  IncFile="$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")/includes/stdpaths.sh"
  if [ -f "$IncFile" ] ; then
    . "$IncFile"
  else
    echo 'No Standard Paths!  Exiting'
    exit 1
  fi
  . "$CommonInc/stdfunctions.sh"
  . "$CommonInc/pretty.sh"
  . "$CommonInc/beginingmsg.sh"
# # # #

# # # #
# Static Setups
# Random user aget
UserAgent=`randomUserAgent`
# # # #

# change to {$WorkingDir}
WorkingDir="/home/michael/data/trash/hoststest"
WorkingDir="/root/hosts"
if [ ! -d "$WorkingDir" ] ; then
  echo 'Hey, you goofed...'
  echo "md $WorkingDir"
  echo '-and-'
  echo 'place hosts.mine.unique in it...'
  exit
fi

cd "$WorkingDir"

# backup existing hosts
CurrDateTime=$(date +"%Y%m%d-%H%M%S")
cp --preserve=all "/etc/hosts" "$WorkingDir/hosts.$CurrDateTime"

# # # [AAA-START]
# # Notes
#
# Add as many block lists as desired, one per line.
#
# escape ('\') items that bork bash, eg..
# https://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/serverlist.php?showintro=0;hostformat=hosts
# https://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/serverlist.php?showintro=0\;hostformat=hosts
# PS: Don't use above as it's HTML, not sure where 'raw' is...
#
HostLists=(
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts
)
# # # [AAA-END]

i=0
for HostList in "${HostLists[@]}"; do
  let "i=i+1"
#   echo "hostlist.$i"
#   echo "$HostList"

wget \
--user-agent="$UserAgent" \
--passive-ftp \
--execute robots=off \
--output-document="hostlist.$i" \
--append-output hostlist.log \
"$HostList"

done

cp --preserve=all 'hosts.mine.unique' 'hosts'
cat "hostlist.$i" >> 'hosts'
cp --preserve=all 'hosts' '/etc/hosts'

ls -al --color=tty /etc/hosts

. "$CommonInc/endingmsg.sh"

[handy]

I haven't used Brave, I'll give it a try.

Brave is pretty easy to configure, & you really DO need to configure it to suit yourself if you are into protecting your privacy. It has a built in add-blocker that does a good enough job & saves you from having to run an extension (which I always think has a strong possibility of shooting yourself in the foot when it comes to privacy). I run uMatrix & 4x anti browser fingerprinting extensions that apparently aren't too privacy invasive according to this site:

https://duo.com/blog/crxcavator

https://crxcavator.io/

I run no other add-on's which I think is amazing when compared to my setups in the other browsers that I have used. I'm also always using a VPN.

Anyway, good luck with it, I hope Brave helps, I know how hard it is to get a browsing setup that satisfies if you are into privacy.

Note: I just recently discovered https://metager.org/meta/meta.ger3?eing ... ch+engines which I find to be a great search engine, as it gives me results that neither startpage.com nor duckduckgo.com will give me. If for some reason I can't find anything on metager I try one of those other two. /off topic

[MCreaves]

If you use Firefox or a Firefox-based browser, search for the addon "Facebook Container" by Mozilla Firefox.

[figueroa]

For blocking with /etc/hosts, consider using antiX-advert-blocker and enable everything.