TrackerScope User Guide

Everything you need to see who's tracking you, and stop them. Set-up takes about a minute.

What tracking actually costs you

It isn't harmless analytics. Here's what really happens to the data sites quietly collect about you, and why seeing it matters.

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The ads that follow you

Advertising pixels like the Meta Pixel, Google Ads, and TikTok Pixel record the pages and products you look at, then match them to your profile across other sites and apps. That's why something you glanced at once trails you around the web for weeks.

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The prices and offers you see

Prices, discounts, and search rankings aren't always the same for everyone. Investigations by journalists and researchers have documented sites varying results and prices based on a visitor's location, device, or past behaviour. The more a site knows about you, the more it can tune what you're shown.

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Your data is bought and sold

A lot of what's collected doesn't stay with the site. Data brokers, a real, multi-billion-dollar industry the FTC has repeatedly flagged, aggregate browsing, location, and purchase history into detailed profiles and sell access to advertisers, insurers, and others, usually without you ever knowing they exist.

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The sessions that get recorded

Session-replay tools such as Hotjar, FullStory, and Microsoft Clarity can record your mouse movements, clicks, scrolling, and keystrokes. Security researchers (including a well-known Princeton study) have shown these scripts sometimes capture what you type into a form before you ever press submit.

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The content picked for you

Recommendation feeds and autoplay queues are fed by tracking data. What you're shown next (articles, videos, products) is steered by the profile trackers have built, which can quietly narrow what you see and keep you scrolling longer.

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A profile that outlives the visit

Third-party cookies and browser fingerprinting stitch your activity across different sites into one persistent identity. Fingerprinting can even re-identify your browser in incognito mode, where people assume they're anonymous.

You can't stop what you can't see. TrackerScope makes every one of these trackers visible, and lets you shut them off.

Getting started

Four steps from install to blocking your first tracker.

1

Install & pin

Add TrackerScope from the Chrome Web Store, then click the puzzle-piece icon in your toolbar and pin TrackerScope so its badge is always visible.

2

Browse normally

Visit any website. TrackerScope scans the page locally and the toolbar badge shows how many trackers are active. A red badge means data is actively flowing out.

3

Open & review

Click the TrackerScope icon to see every tracker on the page, its category and when it first appeared on that site.

4

Stop what you don't want

Hit Stop next to any tracker (or Stop all) and it's blocked immediately, no page reload, even for trackers already running in memory.

Using TrackerScope

A quick tour of what each part of the extension does.

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Reading the badge

The number on the icon is how many trackers are active on the current tab. Grey means none detected; a coloured badge means trackers are present. Click to see the full list.

Blocking & unblocking

Stop blocks a tracker instantly and remembers it globally. Changed your mind? Open the popup and unblock it in one click, the original scripts are restored.

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Hidden (cloaked) trackers

Trackers marked as cloaked are disguising their traffic as the site's own first-party requests. TrackerScope flags these even when a normal ad-blocker would miss them.

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Your privacy dashboard

Open the dashboard to see which companies track you most across every site you've visited, ranked, per-site, and over time, with first-seen dates and CSV export (Pro).

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Dark-pattern warnings

TrackerScope flags manipulative UI like fake countdown timers and false scarcity, plus known cookie-consent tools, so you know when a page is nudging you.

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Where your data lives

Everything stays in your browser. There's no account and no backend, the only network request is validating your license key when you unlock Pro.

Questions & troubleshooting

How do I upgrade to Pro?

Pick a plan on the TrackerScope page and complete checkout. You'll receive a license key by email, open the extension, go to the Upgrade tab, paste the key, and Pro unlocks instantly on this device.

I entered my license key but Pro didn't unlock.

Make sure you copied the whole key with no extra spaces, and that you're online (the key is validated once with our payment provider). If it still fails, email support and we'll sort it out.

A website stopped working after I blocked a tracker.

Rarely, a site ties functionality to a tracker. Open the popup and unblock that one tracker, the page returns to normal immediately. You can keep every other tracker blocked.

Does TrackerScope slow down my browsing?

No. Scanning happens locally with no network overhead, and blocking actually removes requests, so blocked pages can load a little faster.

What's the difference between Free and Pro?

Free lets you see every tracker and block up to 3 platforms. Pro removes the blocking limit and adds auto-block by category, per-site rules, weekly reports, CSV export, and the GDPR/CCPA request generator.

How do I remove TrackerScope?

Right-click the toolbar icon and choose Remove from Chrome. Because all data is stored locally, uninstalling erases your history and settings from your device.

Still need help?

If your question isn't answered here, email us and we'll get back to you. Your data stays on your device, TrackerScope has no backend and nothing to sell.