Talk of The Villages Florida - Technical question: How to avoid being tracked

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- - Technical question: How to avoid being tracked (https://www.talkofthevillages.com/forums/villages-florida-non-villages-discussion-93/technical-question-how-avoid-being-tracked-329031/)

we get good results using Google Flights (Google Travel) and haven't noticed any carry-over from earlier searches but clearing your cookies should certainly do the trick (I'd recommend cCleaner for a more thorough clean, but every browser has its own "quick" cookie delete method

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ecuadog (Post 2059514)

I delete unwanted cookies at least once a day.

Just curious, but what "sites" are you using for your airfare searches?

I have been using the airlines' sites themselves--Air NZ, Qantas, Delta & American. I have family exemption for Australia, and Air NZ was letting Americans fly through Auckland and continue on, but they seem to have stopped that recently.

I tried TOR & Duck Duck Go, but Air NZ and Qantas won't let me in, just give me an Error page.

I will try private window on Firefox & Safari on the Mac.

Run proton vpn. Free for desktop and mobile. Hide your IP address

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arctic Fox (Post 2059517)

Yes. Try using Google Flights click here.

This tutorial should be helpful. How to Use Google Flights click here.

Did anyone notice duck duck go seems to limit your searches compared to Goggle search?

Yes. Less comprehensive results. Try Firefox focus with google as search choice

Incognito mode on some browsers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ecuadog (Post 2059527)

Yes. Try using Google Flights click here.

This tutorial should be helpful. How to Use Google Flights click here.

Thanks, I will try this.
And thanks to everyone else to for the helpful suggestions.

You can browse incognito with an iPhone. There's a button to turn it on. I have an iPhone 12.

You mentioned you have a Mac. Have you tried the Private Relay setting. It might help. The following is a description of Private Relay from my MacBook

iCloud Private Relay keeps your internet activity private. It hides your IP address and browsing activity in Safari and protects your unencrypted internet traffic so that no one — including Apple — can see both who you are and what sites you’re visiting.

If you want to try it.

Settings > click on "Apple ID" icon > check box for "Private Relay (Beta)". If you don't see the box, you'll need to upgrade to the latest OS for Monterey; however, if your Mac is too old, you won't see the option because you won't be able to upgrade to Monterey. I was able to turn this feature on my my newer MacBook, but not for my older iMac.

Private Relay is also available for iPhone/iPad. Go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > Private Relay.

Hope this helps. Charlie

The Villages Computer Club is having a Zoom presentation about internet privacy tomorrow (Feb 11). You can join the club via their website and receive the Zoom connection info.

Meeting & Presentations - The VILLAGES COMPUTER CLUB Inc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CFrance (Post 2059208)

I wish I could have come up with a more explanatory title to explain the help I'm seeking--apologies in advance.
I'm trying to find flights to Australia to visit family. Yesterday the premium economy return (i.e, round trip) flights were about $4K. Today on the same sites they're $5K+. I have heard that through tracking "they," whoever "they" is, know you're looking and raise the prices. (I've had this happen before: example, when searching for a 7-lb medical weight bar, it was $40 one day and $80 the next, whereas the 8-lb bar was $40. for the same bar on the same site on both days. But I hadn't clicked on the 8-lb bar.)

I thought I heard there was a way to do a new search for the same thing and have your prior search not visible to the sites. I'm sure I'm not using the right terminology, but any help would be appreciated.
FYI, I use a Dell Windows 11 and Firefox, although we do have an Mac Pro that we use to Face Time the grandkids. So possibly I could just switch computers?

That is not how it works. They do not have the time nor the programming for that as it's extremely costly, which would negate the rise in price from being of any benefit. If they did that for everyone looking at airfares, they would need millions of Petabytes of storage which has a cost in the billion range to do it right for this type of application.

Totally a silly thing you've been told, and obviously from someone that knows nothing about computer systems.

If you want a better rate you need to look on Tuesday or Wednesday. Those are the best days to get the best rates.

My iPad allows for private browsing. No cookies are stored. Google to learn how.

Also an old story but phone searches are supposedly known and they charge more . A clients have more $$$$ . Like I said old story

Unless this is an impromptu flight that has to be made regardless, I suggest planning in advance. My experience is that the days of the week you travel make a difference (Tues and Thurs and usually cheaper), the airline makes a difference as well as when you search the bookings. I find searching (not flying) weekend mornings is generally better and have found that prices can change daily or even more often. Keep searching using one of the engines these helpful folks have suggested and good luck.