7 ms·

As part of my project, I like to benchmark regularly privacy enhancing extensions ("blockers") for Chromium-based browsers. So I took the opportunity to run one

by gorhill 12y ago

As part of my project, I like to benchmark regularly privacy enhancing extensions ("blockers") for Chromium-based browsers. So I took the opportunity to run one of my key benchmark this morning. [1] The results are meant for a github page, but I decided to present them here, and I reformatted specifically to be HN friendly (hopefully). In short, any of the following blockers help a lot against no blocker at all. Some are less likely to break web pages, while some other are more likely, and every users have their own requirements when it comes to striking balance between privacy and convenience. This is for information purpose only, not to make a statement that one is better than the other. With the proper information, people can make an informed choice according to their own prerogatives. I ordered the list by the amount of distinct domains which are "touched". I figure the more distinct domains are touched, the more metadata is leaked to different parties. The format of the results is n / N, where n is the number of distinct 3rd-party domains, and N is the total number of distinct domains. "3rd-party" is from a DB-less machine point of view, i.e. if a domain name differs from the one of the URL of the page, it is deemed 3rd-party. Despite this caveat, I think this still allows to compare blockers between themselves for the same benchmark ran inside the same narrow time frame. Benefit to the users: It's nice to see privacy becoming more and more a top issue and more and more choice to address this particular problem. So here: No blocker Domains: 420 / 421 Hosts: 641 / 720 Scripts: 518 / 641 Outbound cookies: 263 / 341 Net requests: 2,079 / 2,849 Privacy Badger 2014.5.1 (BETA) Domains: 192 / 193 Hosts: 299 / 381 Scripts: 334 / 455 Outbound cookies: 52 / 115 Net requests: 1,340 / 2,176 Disconnect 5.17 Domains: 93 / 94 Hosts: 171 / 248 Scripts: 262 / 385 Outbound cookies: 19 / 83 Net requests: 1,124 / 1,936 HTTPSB 0.9 Allow-All/Block-Exceptionally Domains: 54 / 55 Hosts: 101 / 153 Scripts: 169 / 265 Outbound cookies: 2 / 43 Net requests: 930 / 1,648 Adblock Plus 1.7.4 Domains: 54 / 55 Hosts: 97 / 149 Scripts: 177 / 272 Outbound cookies: 1 / 33 Net requests: 913 / 1,612 Ghostery 5.2.1 Domains: 52 / 53 Hosts: 99 / 160 Scripts: 173 / 286 Outbound cookies: 8 / 47 Net requests: 966 / 1,722 HTTPSB 0.9 Block-All/Allow-Exceptionally Domains: 21 / 22 Hosts: 49 / 75 Scripts: 0 / 0 Outbound cookies: 0 / 0 Net requests: 680 / 1,199 [1] https://github.com/gorhill/httpswitchboard/wiki/Comparative-benchmarks-against-widely-used-blockers:-Top-15-Most-Popular-News-Websites https://github.com/gorhill/httpswitchboard/wiki/Comparative-...

mgreg 12y ago
I've always looked for some harder data on how to tell the difference (effectively) from these different tools. Really appreciate the data you're providing here. My challenge is that I looked at this data and the web page on Github and I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed but I'm not certain how to interpret the data and understand the real world implications. On the GitHub page it states that "The most important figure in my opinion with regard to privacy is the 3rd-party Domain count" which is a good hint but if I look at Disconnect 5.17 for example I see 93/94 which is "3rd-party count / total count". What, exactly does that mean? Does that mean for the 15 web sites visited that 93 http requests were from 3rd parties and only 1 from a first party? And that with the specified tool it is blocking those 93 requests? Thanks for any additional explanation.
- gorhill 12y ago
  It's the number of distinct "3rd-party" domain names reached on average for the 15 visited web pages. So in the case of Disconnect, for the 15 URL visited, on average 93 "3rd-party" domains were touched. The web page domain in the URL address bar is deemed 1st-party. "Domain" is extracted as per Mozilla's Public Suffix List.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
unhush 12y ago
Note that Privacy Badger uses a browser history-dependent algorithm for blocking - when you first install it, it doesn't block anything because it assumes that third-party trackers are innocent until proven guilty. When it sees you being tracked on 3+ first-party domains by a third party, it either blocks or cookieblocks the third party. I wrote up a basic description of the algorithm here: https://github.com/EFForg/privacybadgerfirefox/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/EFForg/privacybadgerfirefox/blob/master/R... So if you're testing Privacy Badger on a profile with no browsing history, it is bound to do worse than other extensions. You have to "prime" it with some browsing data before it's really effective.
- 12y ago

by gorhill 12y ago

mgreg 12y ago

I've always looked for some harder data on how to tell the difference (effectively) from these different tools. Really appreciate the data you're providing here. My challenge is that I looked at this data and the web page on Github and I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed but I'm not certain how to interpret the data and understand the real world implications. On the GitHub page it states that "The most important figure in my opinion with regard to privacy is the 3rd-party Domain count" which is a good hint but if I look at Disconnect 5.17 for example I see 93/94 which is "3rd-party count / total count". What, exactly does that mean? Does that mean for the 15 web sites visited that 93 http requests were from 3rd parties and only 1 from a first party? And that with the specified tool it is blocking those 93 requests? Thanks for any additional explanation.

gorhill 12y ago
It's the number of distinct "3rd-party" domain names reached on average for the 15 visited web pages. So in the case of Disconnect, for the 15 URL visited, on average 93 "3rd-party" domains were touched. The web page domain in the URL address bar is deemed 1st-party. "Domain" is extracted as per Mozilla's Public Suffix List.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

unhush 12y ago

Note that Privacy Badger uses a browser history-dependent algorithm for blocking - when you first install it, it doesn't block anything because it assumes that third-party trackers are innocent until proven guilty. When it sees you being tracked on 3+ first-party domains by a third party, it either blocks or cookieblocks the third party. I wrote up a basic description of the algorithm here: https://github.com/EFForg/privacybadgerfirefox/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/EFForg/privacybadgerfirefox/blob/master/R... So if you're testing Privacy Badger on a profile with no browsing history, it is bound to do worse than other extensions. You have to "prime" it with some browsing data before it's really effective.

12y ago