Bah re Amazon Logistics & MS Security

( rant )

I ordered something from Amazon earlier today and a few minutes ago got an email saying it has been despatched and should arrive Mon 22. With the additional information

If you have a mobile device, you can use the free Amazon Mobile App to receive delivery notifications and track your parcel on the go.

That includes a link of course.

Two-way no doubt. I can track my delivery, Amazon can track me until I disable the app. If I download it to my phone. Grrr.

Earlier today (Sunday) I spent ten minutes or so changing lots of Microsoft security settings to "No" or "Off" having been requested to check and update them in a message from MS about Windows Creators Edition being prepared for download to me. (Prepared?)

If anyone else gets that message, don't just check the half dozen settings on the page they link to. Go back into the full security settings afte doing those ones. I found a whole list of businesses and such that MS were allowing to access tracker cookies (some of which I want) on my machine in order to target me with ads.

I don't want ads, particularly as anytime I buy anything online I get deluged with ones for the exact item I've bought. Madness.

Yes . I do know about ad blockers. But I don't use one, mainly because this site relies on them for revenue, and every now and then there is one I might click.

Seriously! It really is getting so unless we are extremely vigilant, impossibly so in fact, somebody somewhere is already logging where we are every minute of the day any portable internet-connected device we have is switched on.

I don't like that. It's creepy.

( /rant )

They keep trying to force their apps on us. Ocado keep offering me money off if I download and use their app. But I don't want to - I want to order direct from the website, from the computer, same as usual.

And you do not have to have an app to get Amazon delivery tracking. Again, I can do it direct from the computer.

One of the things that doesn't seem to work, however, is the text messaging. I've checked more than once I have it enabled - with the right phone number (not the fake I usually give) - but I still never get sms alerts that my parcel is coming.

As for ad blockers - get one. And just whitelist any sites you want to help by accepting the ads. I don't think any of the popular ad-blockers don't let you whitelist.

I didn't know you could whitelist.

I do have a blocker on Chrome that i used to use for (ahem) F1 feeds, but as a browser for regular use I just can't take to it.

I may give your suggestion a whirl .

I have also recently seen adverts for something I have just bought.

If you have a VW car, VW now want you to use an App for various things.

Living in an area where the phone battery goes flat in 24 hours, I am not a fan of these things.

I have a house thermostat and a burglar alarm which come with apps. It is the way of the world. I can run the thermostat app on my PC using Arc Welder (needs 64bit Windows)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Seriously! It really is getting so unless we are extremely vigilant, impossibly so in fact, somebody somewhere is already logging where we are every minute of the day any portable internet-connected device we have is switched on.

I don't like that. It's creepy.

( /rant )

The answer is simple....


Don't use the internet

I just checked the Amazon thing again this morning, and saw something I'd never noticed before - which is that they only use the sms facility to alert you to a problem with your delivery. That would explain why I've yet to receive one; if all is going as expected, you won't.

However, I can check the tracking on the website, without having to download an app, and see that I have a delivery on schedule for today. That's with Amazon Logistics. They're not yet quite as good as DPD, who email you with a more specific time - although the delivery is often so soon after the email that it was a bit pointless! I think they must hit "send" from the garden path.

"Oh look, an email from DPD..."

KNOCK KNOCK!

Amazon third party sellers may or may not offer tracking. In fact, in my recent experience, may or may not offer any service at all.

Get Ghostery https://www.ghostery.com/ it is designed for Firefox, Chrome and a couple of others along with iOS and Android.

You can choose which trackers to block either individually or by specific types. You can whitelist a site totally or you can block specific trackers on some sites and not others - it is very flexible and easy to use with a drop down available on each page.

Sometimes I have to turn Ghostery off so that I can do something 'normal'!

Just a single click to pause it though and another to resume.

Yes Tina, the normal website tracker is what I'm using, but really other than initially tell you the due date, followed by the "Out for delivery" it doesn't say much. (Amazon Logistics).

It does give in a click-down detail where it has been - but having placed the order at 16:00 yesterday for standard delivery, followed by a "despatched" email at 23:38 saying it would be delivered today, I checked the tracker before opening emails today. That said it was out for delivery, with a progress barline following.

There was an email at 10:18 saying it as out for delivery. Later I refreshed the tracker page ad the bar extended dramatically but has been frozen ever since, so I assume the next step is "delivered".

Why they can't all be as good as DPD I don't understand. I'd expect Amazon to be ahead of the curve, not lagging so badly. Perhaps they can't instruct these couriers on the route or timing, but they must be tracking them so could let us. If we knew where the vehicle was we would have some idea.

I don't know anyone else who gives as much info, or as accurate, as DPD, to be honest.

I'm in the same situation as you with a delivery for today. Mine's quite funny, because it shows that yesterday it left Bristol, and in the early hours of the morning, arrived in Bristol, so I assume it's actually two separate facilities - just that the regional hub happens (also) to be in Bristol, and from there they've moved it to the local distribution centre.

I don't think it means it got lost and did a round trip!

Who is it that displays a map and a location where the delivery van was the last time it pinged, it also shows the drivers name and when the parcel will be delivered.

It was one of the carriers that Amazon uses.

I have only seen it used once when buying from Amazon.

Paul

Thanks re Ghostery, but I somehow took a dislike to it when I had a look a while ago. Also as I said, I really can't take to Chrome, quite apart from not wanting google to know absolutely everything I do. They get enough from my Android mobile .

Microsoft is inevitable, so I just turn off all feedback that I can find. I still use IE11 and have no real complaints about it, and adverts themselves aren't really a problem. I just normally ignore them, It's the torrent of adverts I get for an item I have just bought that drives me scatty. It's so stupid, especially when it comes from the specific seller or Amazon when both know what I have bought.

Given that I don't mind most "in-page" ads and don't want add-ons clogging up my system with whatever tracking or problems they can involve, I'm fine really. Some newspaper websites however are very intrusive with them.

I only used Chrome and added the adblocker for watching the "pirate" F1 sites as it took ten minutes or so to get through the ads and the multiple auto-new window popups they each created before I could get to watch the action. Rather than having an adblocker on IE11, as I said earlier.

I'm trying to adjust to Edge, but it seems actually cumbersome. Things like a new tab being a pain as you can't type straight into its URL bar. Unless the Creators update that completed an hour ago lets me adjust that. I'm using it for my Stock Exchange Index and currency monitoring, and at the moment it is also in th earl stages of the "Find out more" stuff that I might read later or discard.

That's another thing I remember! Setting up a multiple-tabbed Home Page. You cannot just say "Set to current tabs" . You have to add each one individually and you can't even get a text box to just enter them all in one go in the way IE since it got tabbed browsing has been able to do. Stupid!

You can't import Favorites either without them going into a folder within the accessing drop-down, labelled "Imported from ...", and moving them into the main body is also a pain. Though I expect I could have done it easily in Windows Explorer. Just didn't think till after I had moved the essentials. I may try that for the less urgent ones. And the Favorites list is double-line spaced !!! Lunacy. Doubles the amount of scrolling needed.

Come back CP/M. all is forgiven . Not really, but I did start the thread with a declared "rant".

DPD. And as it gets nearer it narrows down from an hour slot to minutes. Plus it gives your delivery number and which number the driver is on and where it and the intervening ones are.

Edited by RobertoS (Mon 22-May-17 12:35:26)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

DPD. And as it gets nearer it narrows down from an hour slot to minutes. Plus it gives your delivery number and which number the driver is on and where it and the intervening ones are.

Yeah, I forgot to mention the delivery slot number.

Paul

Noscripts on Firefox works as a good ad blocker and added security by disabling automatically any scripts on a website.

Allows you to add whitelists to allow websites you trust, but also knowing if a rogue script did appear on that site, it wont be allowed to run