Worried about personal information and Google?
Most of us have tried a “vanity” search — putting one’s name into the Google search box and seeing what is found. There is often a surprisingly large amount of personal information that has found its way into the Google indexes: would you like to be informed when a site sends such information to Google? If so, and you use Mozilla Firefox as your browser and Windows XP, Windows 7 or Vista as your operating system, then Google Alarm could be just the application for you. It is a Firefox extension that will sound an alarm when it detects that you are using a site that sends information about yourself to Google. It is possible to download a “silent” version that provides a visual warning or the more dramatic “siren” version — but, be warned, the sound of the latter is quite disturbing!