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I highly recommend Ghostery. I've been using it for quite a while now and have no complaints.

jmspring 14y ago
Agree, ghostery is the first thing I install (Safari/Chrome -- don't use Firefox). Only issue, a couple of banking sites I use don't play well with it. On those occasions, pause, reload, do action, reenable ghostery. I only wish Pause was on a per-tab basis.
- nwh 14y ago
  You can whitelist websites in the main preferences, it's a tab in the "trackers" section.
- thelibrarian 14y ago
  You can disable specific trackers on specific sites - e.g. unblock Google Analytics on your banking site, or Disqus on a favourite blog, rather than having to temporarily disable the whole extension browser-wide.
  - AgentConundrum 14y ago
    > You can disable specific trackers on specific sites Either you are incorrect, or this functionality is non-obvious. Based on recent experience, I'm leaning toward the former. When I go to edit my blocking options when a site doesn't play nice with Ghostery, I'm given options either to disable certain tracker-blocking or to disable Ghostery entirely on a given domain. There doesn't seem to be an option to stop blocking a given tracker only when its loaded from a certain site. There is one tracker I've unblocked because it breaks functionality on one site, and I'm fairly certain I've seen its effects on a different site recently as well. It doesn't seem to have unblocked that tracker only for the one site I need it disabled to use.
    - rcxdude 14y ago
      It's non-obvious, but if you click on the check-mark instead of the slider button, it'll be allowed on one domain only. Annoyingly, it doesn't use a tooltip but tells you what the button does after you click it.
    - thelibrarian 14y ago
      The way to do it is not obvious, and varied by browser. For Chrome and Safari, click on the Ghostery icon to bring up its popup control, then click on the 'Edit blocking options' link which will give a checkbox list of trackers to enable/disable. Click out of the pop-up to close it then, reload the page. For Firefox, bring up to pop-up, then click on the checkbox to the right of the slider, then click on the reload link to reload the page. The slider enables/disables the tracker browser-wide, the checkbox enables/disables for the current domain.
      - jrochkind1 14y ago
        Huh, I use chrome, I thought unchecking on that popup would allow that third party site globally, not just ont he present site. You're sure?
      - AgentConundrum 14y ago
        I don't have Firefox on this computer, so I can't check on that, but you're definitely wrong about Chrome. If you click Edit blocking options and uncheck a tracker, it unblocks it globally. I wasn't sure of this last night when I wrote the comment, but I just tried it out with Google Analytics (since it's pretty ubiquitous), and it wasn't only unblocked on that domain.
        thelibrarian 14y ago
        I must be misremembering the behaviour in Chrome/Safari. I guess the site-specific whitelisting must be a relatively new feature of the Firefox version that has not been ported yet.
thelibrarian 14y ago
Likewise. I have found that I don't need both Ghostery and an ad blocker - simply having Ghostery block the trackers will block the vast majority of ads, and the ones that don't get blocked are inoffensive and/or actually interesting.
stephen_g 14y ago
Yep, I've unblocked Disquis but everything else is blacklisted, and I've had no problems with things breaking.
byoogle 14y ago
Lifehacker just did a comparison of popular privacy extensions and called Disconnect the best (over Ghostery and others): http://lifehacker.com/the-best-browser-extensions-that-protect-your-privacy-479408034 http://lifehacker.com/the-best-browser-extensions-that-prote...
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  Just installed it. I'd heard of it before but never given it a shot. It's definitely got a nice UI.
- vidyesh 14y ago
  Just for everyone to know. byoogle is the mastermind behind Disconnect. :)
- fakeer 14y ago
  Okay, I have used both but didn't find Disconnect(good too) even near Ghostery or ABP(have used this too); ABP is bulky that's true.. Though I've been uneasy since Ghostery went closed source[1] but it's so easy to use and light on the browser. Disconnect is partially open source[2] too, and ABP is fully open source. I guess I might switch back to ABP if complains start for Ghostery. [1]https://github.com/jonpierce/ghostery https://github.com/jonpierce/ghostery [2]https://github.com/disconnectme/ https://github.com/disconnectme/
  - Evbn 14y ago
    How is browser JS closed source? Without auditing, calling a server open source is meaningless.
- D9u 14y ago
  I prefer Conformal's Xombrero browser. https://opensource.conformal.com/wiki/xombrero https://opensource.conformal.com/wiki/xombrero
- nnnnni 14y ago
  Yeah... You really should have put a disclaimer in there to let everyone know that you were advertising your own product. That makes me never want to try the extension, no matter how good it may be.
iSnow 14y ago
Even though I still use Ghostery, the fact that it was acquired and went closed source makes me uneasy. I don't see a revenue model here - Ghostery is still free as in beer. So I am a bit wary of the moral hazard this poses to the new owner of Ghostery.
- EvilTerran 14y ago
  From what I recall of their website, they have an opt-in feature whereby the add-on can send them information about what ads are appearing on what pages and the like, and they anonymise and collate the data to sell it. For instance, you could buy a service off them to the effect of "what adverts are actually appearing on my website when Joe User loads it up?" And I believe I remember also seeing a statement to the effect of "we don't obfuscate the code in our XPI", so you could just extract the add-on as a ZIP file if you want to audit the source.
  - Evbn 14y ago
    Awesome, so their monetization strategy is to undermine the whole product and say "trust me"
    - fixanoid 14y ago
      Well, it would be that if Ghostery didn't offer you choice. Also, the data collected is about trackers and not the user. Note: Ghostery dev here.
    - EvilTerran 14y ago
      Jesus H Christ, knee-jerk harder why don't you. Any browser add-on could be monitoring your entire on-line activity. Why the hell does that suddenly become a problem when one's up-front about what data they collect, when they collect it, and what they do with it? And no, they don't say "trust me". As I mentioned in my first comment, they say "if you don't trust us, unpack the add-on and check the source yourself". Which you definitely can - I just did it myself to verify, and it looks like easy reading to me.

Agree, ghostery is the first thing I install (Safari/Chrome -- don't use Firefox). Only issue, a couple of banking sites I use don't play well with it. On those occasions, pause, reload, do action, reenable ghostery. I only wish Pause was on a per-tab basis.

nwh 14y ago
You can whitelist websites in the main preferences, it's a tab in the "trackers" section.
thelibrarian 14y ago
You can disable specific trackers on specific sites - e.g. unblock Google Analytics on your banking site, or Disqus on a favourite blog, rather than having to temporarily disable the whole extension browser-wide.
- AgentConundrum 14y ago
  > You can disable specific trackers on specific sites Either you are incorrect, or this functionality is non-obvious. Based on recent experience, I'm leaning toward the former. When I go to edit my blocking options when a site doesn't play nice with Ghostery, I'm given options either to disable certain tracker-blocking or to disable Ghostery entirely on a given domain. There doesn't seem to be an option to stop blocking a given tracker only when its loaded from a certain site. There is one tracker I've unblocked because it breaks functionality on one site, and I'm fairly certain I've seen its effects on a different site recently as well. It doesn't seem to have unblocked that tracker only for the one site I need it disabled to use.
  - rcxdude 14y ago
    It's non-obvious, but if you click on the check-mark instead of the slider button, it'll be allowed on one domain only. Annoyingly, it doesn't use a tooltip but tells you what the button does after you click it.
  - thelibrarian 14y ago
    The way to do it is not obvious, and varied by browser. For Chrome and Safari, click on the Ghostery icon to bring up its popup control, then click on the 'Edit blocking options' link which will give a checkbox list of trackers to enable/disable. Click out of the pop-up to close it then, reload the page. For Firefox, bring up to pop-up, then click on the checkbox to the right of the slider, then click on the reload link to reload the page. The slider enables/disables the tracker browser-wide, the checkbox enables/disables for the current domain.
    - jrochkind1 14y ago
      Huh, I use chrome, I thought unchecking on that popup would allow that third party site globally, not just ont he present site. You're sure?
    - AgentConundrum 14y ago
      I don't have Firefox on this computer, so I can't check on that, but you're definitely wrong about Chrome. If you click Edit blocking options and uncheck a tracker, it unblocks it globally. I wasn't sure of this last night when I wrote the comment, but I just tried it out with Google Analytics (since it's pretty ubiquitous), and it wasn't only unblocked on that domain.
      - thelibrarian 14y ago
        I must be misremembering the behaviour in Chrome/Safari. I guess the site-specific whitelisting must be a relatively new feature of the Firefox version that has not been ported yet.

thelibrarian 14y ago

Likewise. I have found that I don't need both Ghostery and an ad blocker - simply having Ghostery block the trackers will block the vast majority of ads, and the ones that don't get blocked are inoffensive and/or actually interesting.

stephen_g 14y ago

Yep, I've unblocked Disquis but everything else is blacklisted, and I've had no problems with things breaking.

byoogle 14y ago

Lifehacker just did a comparison of popular privacy extensions and called Disconnect the best (over Ghostery and others): http://lifehacker.com/the-best-browser-extensions-that-protect-your-privacy-479408034 http://lifehacker.com/the-best-browser-extensions-that-prote...

w1ntermute 14y ago
Just installed it. I'd heard of it before but never given it a shot. It's definitely got a nice UI.
vidyesh 14y ago
Just for everyone to know. byoogle is the mastermind behind Disconnect. :)
fakeer 14y ago
Okay, I have used both but didn't find Disconnect(good too) even near Ghostery or ABP(have used this too); ABP is bulky that's true.. Though I've been uneasy since Ghostery went closed source[1] but it's so easy to use and light on the browser. Disconnect is partially open source[2] too, and ABP is fully open source. I guess I might switch back to ABP if complains start for Ghostery. [1]https://github.com/jonpierce/ghostery https://github.com/jonpierce/ghostery [2]https://github.com/disconnectme/ https://github.com/disconnectme/
- Evbn 14y ago
  How is browser JS closed source? Without auditing, calling a server open source is meaningless.
D9u 14y ago
I prefer Conformal's Xombrero browser. https://opensource.conformal.com/wiki/xombrero https://opensource.conformal.com/wiki/xombrero
nnnnni 14y ago
Yeah... You really should have put a disclaimer in there to let everyone know that you were advertising your own product. That makes me never want to try the extension, no matter how good it may be.

iSnow 14y ago

Even though I still use Ghostery, the fact that it was acquired and went closed source makes me uneasy. I don't see a revenue model here - Ghostery is still free as in beer. So I am a bit wary of the moral hazard this poses to the new owner of Ghostery.

EvilTerran 14y ago
From what I recall of their website, they have an opt-in feature whereby the add-on can send them information about what ads are appearing on what pages and the like, and they anonymise and collate the data to sell it. For instance, you could buy a service off them to the effect of "what adverts are actually appearing on my website when Joe User loads it up?" And I believe I remember also seeing a statement to the effect of "we don't obfuscate the code in our XPI", so you could just extract the add-on as a ZIP file if you want to audit the source.
- Evbn 14y ago
  Awesome, so their monetization strategy is to undermine the whole product and say "trust me"
  - fixanoid 14y ago
    Well, it would be that if Ghostery didn't offer you choice. Also, the data collected is about trackers and not the user. Note: Ghostery dev here.
  - EvilTerran 14y ago
    Jesus H Christ, knee-jerk harder why don't you. Any browser add-on could be monitoring your entire on-line activity. Why the hell does that suddenly become a problem when one's up-front about what data they collect, when they collect it, and what they do with it? And no, they don't say "trust me". As I mentioned in my first comment, they say "if you don't trust us, unpack the add-on and check the source yourself". Which you definitely can - I just did it myself to verify, and it looks like easy reading to me.