This add-on for Linux operating systems lets you know whenever Google receives your data with a sound effect.
Listed on Github as “Googerteller”, the Linux add-on gives you “audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google.”
When it is in action, it sounds a bit like a geiger counter.
I made a very very simple tool that makes some noise every time your computer sends data to Google. Here a demo on the official Dutch government jobs site. The noise starts while typing the domain name already. Code, currently Linux only: https://t.co/ZjKeOSfYff pic.twitter.com/dEr8ktIGdo
— Bert Hubert 🇺🇦 (@bert_hu_bert) August 21, 2022
The add-on was created by Bert Hubert, a software developer and a member of a Dutch oversight board. It sources information from publically available Google IP addresses, which is what sets off the beeps.
It’s scarier than it has any right being. As you can hear by listening along to the example video above (which uses the Dutch government jobs website), as Hubert types into the search bar in Google Chrome, the system beeps and makes noises.
What that means is that Google is collecting data on your keystrokes in the address bar (which it does). This is part of what informs the autofill prompts when using Google Chrome.
But there’s more to the video. As Hubert arrives on the page, we hear a beep. As he clicks any listings on the page, we hear a beep.
Additionally, after putting up the video testing the add-on with Google Chrome’s data collection, Hubert put up this test using Firefox. The machine continues to beep.
I did a demo of the Google noisemaker that makes some noise every time your computer talks to Google. This demo was based on Google Chrome & made lots of noise. People told me to expect this, since it was Chrome. Here is a video showing the exact same thing on Firefox: pic.twitter.com/btFbIbEivg
— Bert Hubert 🇺🇦 (@bert_hu_bert) August 22, 2022
“The issue here is that all kinds of websites snitch on you to google, without retrieving data you need,” Hubert added.
“It beeps at the HTTPS request, but it has to go out on the wire. So if DNS failed already, you would not hear a thing.”
Criticisms of the add-on considered the concept misleading. One Twitter user noted that the beeps generalise across a wide range of internet operations, including DNS requests, TCP handshakes or the loading of Google Analytics scripts.
But that’s the point: that’s so much data to generalise over and it comes back to the point of not really knowing what Google is doing with all that information (it’s usually for targetted ads).
If this is scary to you, you’re not alone. The comments were filled with people yelling a collective “yikes” at all the beeps.
If you’d like to up your privacy game, consider using a more secure browser (and if you’re using Firefox, make sure to disable tracking).
You can install Googerteller on Linux-based operating systems, though a Twitter user claimed that they got it working on MacOS.