With the so-called Googerteller, the software developer Bert Hubert has developed a browser extension that signals when Google accesses certain data. He wants to raise people’s awareness on the Internet.

Google stands for the Internet like hardly any other company. Because the search engine has been omnipresent since the triumph of the Internet. Large parts of the Internet infrastructure are based on the services of the US group.

So it’s no wonder that Google has mutated into a veritable data octopus in the recent past. But how bad is the situation really? The software developer Bert Hubert asked himself the same question and got to the bottom of it all.

Not by combing through large internet archives, but via a simple browser extension for the most widely used browser, Google Chrome. Interested parties can check the source code on GitHub at any time.

Googerteller monitors connections to Google servers

The tool bears the name Googerteller and has a relatively simple task to fulfil. If the browser establishes a connection to the Google servers, the tool makes a sound. And if you now think that using Chrome will result in a sound concert, you are absolutely right.

Because even when entering a term in the address bar, the extension beeped incessantly. The reason for this is that the browser sends each new letter to the Google servers in order to return the appropriate search results. But there was also constant noise outside of the browser functions.

Many website operators use the Google Analytics tool to analyze the behavior of their users. For example, the Dutch government, on whose side the Googerteller should regularly draw attention to itself.

Google also gets a lot away from the search engine

Developer Bert Hubert states that he wants to raise our awareness with the expansion. Often we don’t even know how often we interact with Google. But the Googerteller shows more or less obtrusively how often this is the case in everyday life.

If you want to try the tool yourself, you need Google Chrome for Linux. The list of Google servers comes from the company itself, so the information comes from a reliable source. Ultimately, in one way or another, it’s almost spooky where Google follows us everywhere.

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Source: https://www.basicthinking.de/blog/2022/08/27/googerteller-google/

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