How to block yourself from Google Analytics

Thought long and hard about actually posting this but what the hell.

Most sites today have Google Analytics installed on each page to assist in tracking its users and its users browsing habits. Did you know that you can actually block this and prevent yourself from being tracked by a website? When you navigate to a webpage with Google Analytics installed, a small JavaScript file is downloaded to your computer called urchin.js (called the Urchin Tracking Module) which does all of the tracking. If you don't want to be tracked you just have to block the download of this file. This is very simple to do, just follow the step below.

Steps to block:

1. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to windows/system32/drivers/etc/hosts (note: Win98 users may find the hosts file in the windows folder)
2. Open the hosts file in Notepad - hosts file does not have an extension
3. Add the following two lines to the hosts file and save
1. 127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com
2. 127.0.0.1 ssl.google-analytics.com
4. Save and close the file

That's it. You will no longer be tracked by any website using Google Analytics.

Firefox users can use the CustomizeGoogle extension to perform the same thing.