Speed up website load time by denying tracking

Recently it has dawned upon me that not everyone knows about tracking cookies or analytics (Google and so forth) and what it really means when visiting websites… It’s always seen as a form of spy-ware or hacking Trojan to help people gather information and exploit it to their advantage. That is absolutely true, however, not in a “hacking” sense…

Advertising companies are fond of requiring statistics and demographic information from a website before they tend to invest in advertising, and most websites (if not all) have Google Analytics installed to help them track their users for very powerful reports as to trends when visiting the website. Combined with Webmaster Tools (also a Google product) and some comparison data from the physical server logs, this is more than enough to track trends, visitors and useful information when giving it to possible advertisers to decide if your website is indeed worth investing in.

Enter the Nielsen reporting facility. They claim to be the leaders in gathering data and useful information on the public visiting a specific website. Indeed, what they claim is very nice, but how they go about achieving that borders on the “spyware” side.

From my brief overview of the tracking code installed on several South African websites, I found that several attempts at creating “objects” with client-side JavaScript code made it possible for them to determine which programs you have installed on your PC. Indeed, very interesting.

What would a company want with that type of information anyway? Why not just leave it at Google Analytics, a well known website tracking and analytic software made freely available to anyone and everyone?

Something to hide perhaps, but I can only speculate as to their reasons. Perhaps some advertisors insist on this specific piece of tracking code being installed on the website. Nobody would notice right?

Well, some more advanced users have, and most of them have done something about it already, speeding up their South African websites by noticable amounts, they’re enjoying a glimpse of what true broadband speeds are like in other countries, and with this little tutorial, so can you!

Here’s how!

Open up your Explorer in Windows
Go to C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\Etc and locate the file called “hosts” (no extension)
Double click the file and open with Notepad
You will find a line like this:

————————————-
# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a ‘#’ symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host

127.0.0.1 localhost
—————————–

press enter to create a new line after that one and type in:

——————–
127.0.0.1*tab button*secure-za.imrworldwide.com
——————–

NB you have to press the Tab button after the 127.0.0.1

Click on File then Save

At this point if it starts moaning about not being able to save or giving you a prompt to “Save As” where you have to type in a different file name, it means your file is write protected.

All you need to do to correct this is right click on the file Hosts, click on Properties and untick the “read only” checkbox if it’s ticked. Click OK and try and save the file again.

Sit back, relax, pop open a beer and enjoy a faster loading of your favorite locally hosted websites that use bloated unfamiliar tracking software *including* Google Analytics for their advertising campaigns.

This can be done to any website running tracking services other than Google Analytics and can be used to significantly speed up load times on your favorite websites, in this example, some South African hosted websites.

This in no way blocks the advertisements on the websites you’re visiting (they do need the money for the effort and care they put in running their website you know!) but it does alter your PC by fooling itself to think that the code that it is about to load has already been loaded off of your local machine.

In no way are you “hacking” the websites you’re about to visit, you’re just flexing your muscle as to which content is downloaded to your PC at any given time and, as a benefit, decreasing load times without having to pay for an upgrade to your internet line.

Feedback is welcomed and I enjoy helping you find ways to speed things up in the future…