Are you tired of getting multiple marketing emails blocking all the important emails in your inbox? Your inbox is flooded with advertisements of random products and other marketing emails because you are being tracked on the internet. Companies always keep a tab on you and your activities and email you according to your frequent searches.
Not only this, but they also track whether you open their email or not, and they also check your location and time by embedding tracking software into the messages. If you don’t believe this data, you can check it out for yourself by typing ’email tracking’ on your search engine, and you will find the list of all the software apps that are responsible for the same.
Other than that, there are multiple methods available these days that are engaged in tracking emails. Let’s take an example of Redirect Link, which in simple terms is also called URL Forwarding, which is used as a world-wide-web technique for making a web page available under more than one URL address. Whenever any web browser attempts to open a URL that has been redirected, you will find a new page opening with a different URL. A similar thing can happen with a domain as well, where all the pages in a URL domain are redirected to a different domain address.
Now, as we took the example of a redirect link, you may suppose that you click on a link that leads you to a professional email redirecting you to a page for a product you might want to buy. The link provided in that email is coded in a way that it gets easier to get tracked by the company, and it will further go to another server with a variety of data related to you and your searches on the browser before it takes you to the main article. So, while you are waiting for the article to load, your data gets transferred without your permission, and you will never get to know about what information they have tracked within those few seconds.
A lot of companies make profits out of these data, but Google serves its users better than that. Since 2014, Google has served all the images using its own proxy server that protects you from unknown senders who try to use pictures to interrupt the security of your computer or mobile device. Google has also made new changes in Gmail that serves the same purpose to provide you with a safe and secure platform.
These proxy servers also hide your locations from most of the tracking applications. You can also use extensions like PixelBlock and Ugly Mail to block trackers on your browser. Apart from all these things, there are also a few steps that you can take to make your device more secure. Follow the steps mentioned below to disable the auto-loading of the images on any device:
On Smartphones
- Open the Gmail app and click on the three-lined icon given at the upper left corner of the screen.
- Scroll down the menu page to click on Settings.
- Tap on the email account for which you want to disable this feature.
- Scroll down the page appearing on your screen and click on Images.
- Click on the options for ‘Ask before displaying external images (also disable dynamics email).
On PCs
- Click on the gear icon given the top right corner of the screen.
- Select ‘See All Settings’ and go to the General tab.
- Scroll down the page to click on ‘Images’ and select ‘Ask before displaying external images’.
- Scroll down the page and click on ‘Save Changes,’ it will also turn off the Gmail dynamic email feature automatically.
You will need to switch off automatic downloading of the images on your email as most of the pixel hides in these images only, and you won’t be able to avoid all the trackers if you continue to see the photos. But using the options mentioned above, you can stop a lot of trackers, if not everyone.
