FormspillResources Does this site use the Facebook pixel?
How to tell if a website uses the Facebook (Meta) pixel
Open the browser’s developer tools, go to the Network tab, reload the page and filter for facebook.com/tr. Any request there is the Meta pixel reporting your visit. Meta’s own Pixel Helper extension shows the same thing with a click. Neither tells you what the pixel learns from a form; a form check does.
What is the Facebook pixel?
The Meta pixel (still often called the Facebook pixel) is a small piece of code a website adds so that Meta can measure its ads. It reports what you do on the site, such as viewing a product, signing up or buying, back to Meta, which uses it to show you ads and to measure which ads worked.
With a setting called Advanced Matching, the pixel can also send details you typed, such as your email address or phone number. Meta’s documentation says these are hashed with SHA-256 before they are sent: a scrambled code rather than the address itself. As our article on hashed emails explains, that code still identifies you.
Three ways to check a site
- Meta Pixel Helper. Meta’s own Chrome extension shows a small badge when a page sends pixel events, with the pixel’s ID and the events it sent. It is made for advertisers, so it shows events, not what was in the form.
- The Network tab. Open developer tools (F12 on Windows, Cmd+Option+I on a Mac), choose Network,
reload the page and type
facebook.com/trinto the filter box. Each request listed is the pixel sending an event. Click one and open Payload to see what it carried. You can also filter forfbevents.js, the pixel’s code itself, loaded fromconnect.facebook.net. - The page source. Searching the page’s source for
fbevents.jsfinds a pixel written into the page, but misses one loaded later by a tag manager, so the Network tab is the better test.
If you use an ad blocker, it may stop these requests before they leave, so the pixel can look absent even when the site has it. Check in a profile without extensions to see what other visitors send.
What these checks don’t tell you
Knowing the pixel is on a page is the first half. The question that matters for your privacy is what it receives from the form you are about to fill in: your email while you type, your email when you press send, or nothing at all. Reading request payloads by hand is slow, and the details are usually hashed, so they are hard to recognise.
How Formspill checks it
Click the Formspill icon on the page and the sidebar names the companies whose code runs there, Meta included. Press “Check where my data goes” and Formspill fills the form with made-up details, watches every request, and tells you whether the pixel received them, hashed or plain, and whether that happened while typing or on send. Every request carrying the made-up details is blocked, so nothing is sent.
Check a form before you type into it. Formspill is free for Chrome: no account, and nothing leaves your browser.
