Akamai, and others

[RandomUser]

Just what the heck is Akamai? The information in Google is old

As I monitor TCP connections, I notice that:
facebook.com
google-analytics.com
akamaitechnologies.com
akamai.net
amazonaws.com
...show up often. (Why?) I almost never use facebook and it's been ages since I touched amazon. Is there a way to block this? Thank you.

[shelf life]

Akamai and amazon provide services like content delivery to web sites. You must be seeing there Ip's. I believe Akamai is the largest but there are other companies that provide services also.

Google analytics provides web site statistics. Another big player is Alexa Metrics. There are others.
A web site collects information then sends it to goggle which makes nice graphs and charts about the visitors to the website, like how you got there, links or ads you clicked on, browser info etc.
FireFox has some add-ons you might be interested in like Ghostery, Adblock plus, BetterPrivacy, Iam only familiar with those, there may be others that may be useful.

http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2010/03/24/google-analytics-opt-out/

http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

Akamai attachment is old but explains things.

[RandomUser]

Thank you very much for that information.
I'll be checking those add-ons.