6 ms·

This. I work on Disconnect. I don't understand why any hacker would still put Ghostery on their machine: * Ghostery is run by former ad execs (7/9ths of their

by byoogle 13y ago

This. I work on Disconnect. I don't understand why any hacker would still put Ghostery on their machine: * Ghostery is run by former ad execs (7/9ths of their executive team): http://www.evidon.com/our-team http://www.evidon.com/our-team * They make their money (I've heard tens of millions of dollars per year) selling user data to ad co's and data brokers: http://www.evidon.com/#block-views-from_our_partners-block http://www.evidon.com/#block-views-from_our_partners-block

quesera 13y ago
So this is awesome, Ghostery has been a unsettling compromise for years now. I'm very happy to learn that you guys are doing it right. Thank you! I've never been able to detect any nefarious network traffic caused by Ghostery (and I've looked), but I don't like the games they play, so I'll be pleased to ditch them without ceremony.
- byoogle 13y ago
  Ghostery's game seems to be tricking users into sending their data to Evidon. Going off the company's own numbers, something like 45% of Ghostery users send Evidon data (by comparison, only 2% of Firefox users share data through Telemetry).
  - out_there 13y ago
    Ghostery's default setting is to disable submitting data. You have to explicity opt-in. How is that tricking? I was interested in your project but your smearing of 'competitors' with FUD is seriously disconcerting.
    - byoogle 13y ago
      Congrats on your first post! [1] 1. http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/A/astroturfing.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/A/astroturfing.html
      - rand456 13y ago
        Congrats on the non-answer.
znowi 13y ago
Sadly, Disconnect detects less trackers than Ghostery (e.g. 5 vs 7 on washingtonpost.com). I also like how Ghostery provides URLs for each tracker source (actual payload) that you can easily view on their site. There's also a database with short description, affiliations and privacy terms for each tracker (e.g. https://www.ghostery.com/apps/google_analytics https://www.ghostery.com/apps/google_analytics). I really appreciate an ethical alternative to tainted Ghostery and hope you guys will catch up soon.
- byoogle 13y ago
  Not true, Disconnect detects 13 trackers on http://www.washingtonpost.com/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/. If you're running multiple filtering extensions all at the same time, install order matters as far as which extension sees which HTTP requests.
  - andrewcooke 13y ago
    oh, interesting - can you explain the details? is it simple or random? if i install disconnect and then ghostery wil ghostery help with anything disconnect misses or is it more complicated than that? thanks!
    - byoogle 13y ago
      As of the last time I tested: * Chrome, Safari, and Opera give precedence to the newest extension - if that extension blocks a request, older extensions don't see the request. * Firefox gives precedence to the oldest add-on.
  - john-p 13y ago
    ABP has several privacy lists that is managed publicly so I don't see the need for these untrusted and unproven extensions.
    - byoogle 13y ago
      That's a pretty cheap shot: * Disconnect has more than a million active users and Ghostery has more than two million. * Disconnect is also as public as ABP: https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect.
fixanoid 13y ago
Oh, hai Brian! Aren't you a former doubleclick-turn-righteous? And don't you also employ an ex-NSA dude? And no, we do not sell user data, just tracker data. Cheers!
- quesera 13y ago
  I get that you two are rivals, but he does have a point that you haven't addressed. Ghostery seems to be in the business of selling the data that I forget to tell them they may not collect. This is intrinsically a sneaky thing to do. Yes I know about and use the "default to blocking" setting, but I don't think there is much argument that Ghostery users download your software with the expectation that the default would be anything else. But it is. And that's sneaky. So you offer a very useful product, for free, and make money off of the people who fail to configure it so that it performs the only service they would ever purposely download it for. Again, I have sniffed Ghostery looking for violations of my configuration settings, and never found any. I believe that it follows its configuration settings, and I am thankful for its existence. And I recognize that development and maintenance of it is not free. Presumably you are not a volunteer. I have gotten value out of Ghostery, but apparently that has been on the backs of other users who want the same thing, but are less-careful than me about reading configuration options, and that doesn't sit well.
  - aroch 13y ago
    You have to opt-in to 'Ghostrank' which is the data that they sell. I don't really see what's sneaky about this. Hell,if you click the 'see more...' toggle on the prefs page it tells you what Ghostrank does. >Online marketing companies need better visibility into real-world applications of their technologies and those owned by their competitors. GhostRank data is sold as reports to businesses to help them market to consumers more transparently, better manage their web properties, and comply with privacy standards.
    - byoogle 13y ago
      quesera described what's sneaky about Ghostery - their users think they're protected but aren't and don't know they're sending data to Evidon that the company sells but are: > So you offer a very useful product, for free, and make money off of the people who fail to configure it so that it performs the only service they would ever purposely download it for. I gave some numbers above that show, in practice, just how many users are in one of these unexpected configurations: > Ghostery's game seems to be tricking users into sending their data to Evidon. Going off the company's own numbers, something like 45% of Ghostery users send Evidon data (by comparison, only 2% of Firefox users share data through Telemetry).
lemming 13y ago
So I just tried Disconnect. A few comments: * I can't seem to see a list of all Google trackers. Some sites have multiple Google trackers, but if I click on the icon to see them it just turns off blocking for them. I'm assuming sites don't have 6 GA trackers, what are the others? * I can't seem to turn off Content trackers for all sites. Configuring this site-by-site seems clumsy, to say the least.
- byoogle 13y ago
  Thanks. #2 first: Code to block everything marked as content with one click was either just checked in or is about to be. For #1: Disconnect groups tracking requests by company. If you want to see all the Google services that Disconnect filters, you could look through the filter list (services are grouped by category and company here, so start at lines 33, 1,882, and 2,326): https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect/blob/b27abbf033c6f80f157fe9d98cb767c87065fbf4/firefox/content/disconnect.safariextension/opera/chrome/scripts/data.js https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect/blob/b27abbf033c6....
dictum 13y ago
Why is the Disconnect trackers list (https://services.disconnect.me/disconnect.json https://services.disconnect.me/disconnect.json, referenced in https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect/blob/master/firefox/content/services.js https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect/blob/master/firef...) an encrypted blob? That seems to go against the OS nature of the project.
- byoogle 13y ago
  See the commit message at https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect/commit/691897e21d2a9ad7f11b036b20292ac7464209ce https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect/commit/691897e21d.... The unencrypted list is at https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect/blob/b27abbf033c6f80f157fe9d98cb767c87065fbf4/firefox/content/disconnect.safariextension/opera/chrome/scripts/data.js https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect/blob/b27abbf033c6.... And formatted as JSON at https://disconnect.me/services-plaintext.json https://disconnect.me/services-plaintext.json. The encrypted list is also trivial to decrypt with the SJCL code in https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect/blob/master/firefox/content/services.js https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect/blob/master/firef....
  - dictum 13y ago
    Thanks! I was setting up a proxy for devices that can't use Disconnect or Adblock. I thought of adapting the Disconnect list to the proxy's block list, but a cursory reading of the source only showed the URL of the encrypted list.
    - byoogle 13y ago
      Cool, ping me if you need help (byoogle everywhere).
- fixanoid 13y ago
  Hehe, this makes me chuckle every time.

by byoogle 13y ago

quesera 13y ago

So this is awesome, Ghostery has been a unsettling compromise for years now. I'm very happy to learn that you guys are doing it right. Thank you! I've never been able to detect any nefarious network traffic caused by Ghostery (and I've looked), but I don't like the games they play, so I'll be pleased to ditch them without ceremony.

byoogle 13y ago
Ghostery's game seems to be tricking users into sending their data to Evidon. Going off the company's own numbers, something like 45% of Ghostery users send Evidon data (by comparison, only 2% of Firefox users share data through Telemetry).
- out_there 13y ago
  Ghostery's default setting is to disable submitting data. You have to explicity opt-in. How is that tricking? I was interested in your project but your smearing of 'competitors' with FUD is seriously disconcerting.
  - byoogle 13y ago
    Congrats on your first post! [1] 1. http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/A/astroturfing.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/A/astroturfing.html
    - rand456 13y ago
      Congrats on the non-answer.

znowi 13y ago

Sadly, Disconnect detects less trackers than Ghostery (e.g. 5 vs 7 on washingtonpost.com). I also like how Ghostery provides URLs for each tracker source (actual payload) that you can easily view on their site. There's also a database with short description, affiliations and privacy terms for each tracker (e.g. https://www.ghostery.com/apps/google_analytics https://www.ghostery.com/apps/google_analytics). I really appreciate an ethical alternative to tainted Ghostery and hope you guys will catch up soon.

byoogle 13y ago
Not true, Disconnect detects 13 trackers on http://www.washingtonpost.com/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/. If you're running multiple filtering extensions all at the same time, install order matters as far as which extension sees which HTTP requests.
- andrewcooke 13y ago
  oh, interesting - can you explain the details? is it simple or random? if i install disconnect and then ghostery wil ghostery help with anything disconnect misses or is it more complicated than that? thanks!
  - byoogle 13y ago
    As of the last time I tested: * Chrome, Safari, and Opera give precedence to the newest extension - if that extension blocks a request, older extensions don't see the request. * Firefox gives precedence to the oldest add-on.
- john-p 13y ago
  ABP has several privacy lists that is managed publicly so I don't see the need for these untrusted and unproven extensions.
  - byoogle 13y ago
    That's a pretty cheap shot: * Disconnect has more than a million active users and Ghostery has more than two million. * Disconnect is also as public as ABP: https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect.

fixanoid 13y ago

Oh, hai Brian! Aren't you a former doubleclick-turn-righteous? And don't you also employ an ex-NSA dude? And no, we do not sell user data, just tracker data. Cheers!

quesera 13y ago
I get that you two are rivals, but he does have a point that you haven't addressed. Ghostery seems to be in the business of selling the data that I forget to tell them they may not collect. This is intrinsically a sneaky thing to do. Yes I know about and use the "default to blocking" setting, but I don't think there is much argument that Ghostery users download your software with the expectation that the default would be anything else. But it is. And that's sneaky. So you offer a very useful product, for free, and make money off of the people who fail to configure it so that it performs the only service they would ever purposely download it for. Again, I have sniffed Ghostery looking for violations of my configuration settings, and never found any. I believe that it follows its configuration settings, and I am thankful for its existence. And I recognize that development and maintenance of it is not free. Presumably you are not a volunteer. I have gotten value out of Ghostery, but apparently that has been on the backs of other users who want the same thing, but are less-careful than me about reading configuration options, and that doesn't sit well.
- aroch 13y ago
  You have to opt-in to 'Ghostrank' which is the data that they sell. I don't really see what's sneaky about this. Hell,if you click the 'see more...' toggle on the prefs page it tells you what Ghostrank does. >Online marketing companies need better visibility into real-world applications of their technologies and those owned by their competitors. GhostRank data is sold as reports to businesses to help them market to consumers more transparently, better manage their web properties, and comply with privacy standards.
  - byoogle 13y ago
    quesera described what's sneaky about Ghostery - their users think they're protected but aren't and don't know they're sending data to Evidon that the company sells but are: > So you offer a very useful product, for free, and make money off of the people who fail to configure it so that it performs the only service they would ever purposely download it for. I gave some numbers above that show, in practice, just how many users are in one of these unexpected configurations: > Ghostery's game seems to be tricking users into sending their data to Evidon. Going off the company's own numbers, something like 45% of Ghostery users send Evidon data (by comparison, only 2% of Firefox users share data through Telemetry).

lemming 13y ago

So I just tried Disconnect. A few comments: * I can't seem to see a list of all Google trackers. Some sites have multiple Google trackers, but if I click on the icon to see them it just turns off blocking for them. I'm assuming sites don't have 6 GA trackers, what are the others? * I can't seem to turn off Content trackers for all sites. Configuring this site-by-site seems clumsy, to say the least.

byoogle 13y ago
Thanks. #2 first: Code to block everything marked as content with one click was either just checked in or is about to be. For #1: Disconnect groups tracking requests by company. If you want to see all the Google services that Disconnect filters, you could look through the filter list (services are grouped by category and company here, so start at lines 33, 1,882, and 2,326): https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect/blob/b27abbf033c6f80f157fe9d98cb767c87065fbf4/firefox/content/disconnect.safariextension/opera/chrome/scripts/data.js https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect/blob/b27abbf033c6....

dictum 13y ago

Why is the Disconnect trackers list (https://services.disconnect.me/disconnect.json https://services.disconnect.me/disconnect.json, referenced in https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect/blob/master/firefox/content/services.js https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect/blob/master/firef...) an encrypted blob? That seems to go against the OS nature of the project.

byoogle 13y ago
See the commit message at https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect/commit/691897e21d2a9ad7f11b036b20292ac7464209ce https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect/commit/691897e21d.... The unencrypted list is at https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect/blob/b27abbf033c6f80f157fe9d98cb767c87065fbf4/firefox/content/disconnect.safariextension/opera/chrome/scripts/data.js https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect/blob/b27abbf033c6.... And formatted as JSON at https://disconnect.me/services-plaintext.json https://disconnect.me/services-plaintext.json. The encrypted list is also trivial to decrypt with the SJCL code in https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect/blob/master/firefox/content/services.js https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect/blob/master/firef....
- dictum 13y ago
  Thanks! I was setting up a proxy for devices that can't use Disconnect or Adblock. I thought of adapting the Disconnect list to the proxy's block list, but a cursory reading of the source only showed the URL of the encrypted list.
  - byoogle 13y ago
    Cool, ping me if you need help (byoogle everywhere).
fixanoid 13y ago
Hehe, this makes me chuckle every time.