8 ms·

And there are indeed a few solutions that actually grant you partial relief from the pains of online tracking. First, switch your search engine, email and other

And there are indeed a few solutions that actually grant you partial relief from the pains of online tracking. First, switch your search engine, email and other major services where your personal information is heavily tracked to good private alternatives. Second, add EFF’s HTTPS Everywhere plugin to your browser, which will encrypt web site connections where possible. Third, add EFF’s Privacy Badger plugin to your browser, which blocks third-party trackers. These three simple changes will pretty seamlessly and significantly reduce your digital footprint. Since this is a quote from the article, I feel this is an appropriate space to ask: does anyone have a page explaining how these various privacy extensions interact/overlap with each other? I tend to install (or at least try out) pretty much every popular one at some point or another, and I'm hoping to reduce redundancies. Alot of these tools show up on recommended "Get These If You're Serious About Privacy" lists without indicating what exactly each extension does or how it might interact with another extension. These include: - Adblock Plus - Ghostery - Disconnect - HTTPS Everywhere - EFF Privacy Badger - uBlock - NoScript At this point, I've "slimmed" down to just HTTPS Everywhere and uBlock, although I'm debating adding Privacy Badger. However, their own page mentions that it's "based on ABP code" [0], so my thought is that uBlock is probably also taking care of it. Is that sufficient? Is there any danger in installing Privacy Badger and uBlock, for instance, if they serve the same function? Will they step on each other's toes? Some kind of comparison chart would be useful. [0] - https://www.eff.org/privacybadger#how_is_it_different https://www.eff.org/privacybadger#how_is_it_different

joosters 12y ago
There is a chance that some extensions will interfere with each other. For instance, Ghostery mentions this on their options page: Warning! When combined with other cookie monitoring addons such as Beef Taco, Cookie Monster, and Google Opt-Out, this feature can cause unresponsive script errors. If you experience this error, please try disabling this feature or conflicting addons.
- schoen 12y ago
  That kind of problem used to happen with DOS TSRs (the equivalent of multitasking extensions or daemon processes). It's funny to think that the reason for browser extension incompatibilities is kind of analogous to the reason for TSR incompatibilities: both of them will hook function calls in the system whose functionality they're extending, and make assumptions about how they can alter, act on, or cancel the function call without breaking things, and whether or how it needs to be passed along afterwards. If only one extension is loaded, these assumptions aren't stressed very much, but when several are loaded the assumptions can conflict. (That analogy isn't perfect because the TSRs also had an issue about patching the interrupt descriptor table, which is where the system looks up the location of an interrupt handler; one common problem was that if TSRs weren't unloaded in the same order in which they were loaded, the table could be "restored" with values that were not actually current, which I don't think is a problem that has an equivalent for browser extensions!)
falcolas 12y ago
I have personally found that a hosts file can reduce the need for a bunch of those addons - it can block not only ads, but also many forms of tracking. I've found it very refreshing when surfing the web. For reference, I use: http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/
- zipperhead 12y ago
  I've thought of using hosts file vs. plugins but have never really made the switch. I'm a bit concerned that I'll run into cases like a website is broken due to a hosts file setting, and I can't easily bypass it like I can with a plugin. Do you ever run into situations like this?
  - stcredzero 12y ago
    Are there any utilities for management of the hosts file?
    - falcolas 12y ago
      I've never used one aside from a text editor. Plain text file with whitespace delimited items; about as simple as it gets.
    - overdrivetg 12y ago
      Gas Mask on OSX: http://clockwise.ee/ http://clockwise.ee/
  - riking 12y ago
    µBlock can import hosts files, and it has an off-switch :)
  - falcolas 12y ago
    The only breakage I have ever noticed is the occasional site which has about 30 or so "broken image" placeholders surrounding the content. Otherwise, I don't even notice its presence.
  - 12y ago
hackuser 12y ago
A related question: If someone with expertise or data could compare the effectiveness of tracker-blocking solutions, such as Ghostery and Disconnect, it would be helpful.
- XzetaU8 12y ago
  µBlock vs Adblock Plus vs Ghostery vs Disconnect vs No blocker https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/%C2%B5Block-and-others:-Blocking-ads,-trackers,-malwares#data-diffs https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/%C2%B5Block-and-other...
hackuser 12y ago
Try RequestPolicy. It blocks all requests to domains other than the host's, unless you whitelist them. It comes with optional whitelists you can use for popular sites. On one hand, it's cumbersome, requiring you to whitelist some requests and reload when you visit a new webpage (most sites require a CDN at least). On the other, it's easy to use and good security.
- pikzen 12y ago
  Additionally, try RequestPolicyContinued[0] because the original RequestPolicy dev has stopped maintaining it. [0] http://requestpolicycontinued.github.io http://requestpolicycontinued.github.io
  - XzetaU8 12y ago
    Or try Policeman https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/policeman/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/policeman/
XzetaU8 12y ago
The "based on ABP code" apply only For the Chromium/Chrome version "For the Firefox version of Privacy Badger, we also eschewed the ABP engine in favor of something we wrote ourselves. Don't get me wrong, ABP is a great tool and we learned a lot from its code - but we wanted something as lean and performant as possible....." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7686396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7686396 also ublock makes ABP, Ghostery & Disconnect redundant. https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/%C2%B5Block-and-others:-Blocking-ads,-trackers,-malwares#data-diffs https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/%C2%B5Block-and-other...
steeples 12y ago
AFAIK the only way to do tracking is some combination of images and JS. All these 'blocking' plugins are redundant when those two seemingly elephants in the room are disabled.

joosters 12y ago

There is a chance that some extensions will interfere with each other. For instance, Ghostery mentions this on their options page: Warning! When combined with other cookie monitoring addons such as Beef Taco, Cookie Monster, and Google Opt-Out, this feature can cause unresponsive script errors. If you experience this error, please try disabling this feature or conflicting addons.

schoen 12y ago
That kind of problem used to happen with DOS TSRs (the equivalent of multitasking extensions or daemon processes). It's funny to think that the reason for browser extension incompatibilities is kind of analogous to the reason for TSR incompatibilities: both of them will hook function calls in the system whose functionality they're extending, and make assumptions about how they can alter, act on, or cancel the function call without breaking things, and whether or how it needs to be passed along afterwards. If only one extension is loaded, these assumptions aren't stressed very much, but when several are loaded the assumptions can conflict. (That analogy isn't perfect because the TSRs also had an issue about patching the interrupt descriptor table, which is where the system looks up the location of an interrupt handler; one common problem was that if TSRs weren't unloaded in the same order in which they were loaded, the table could be "restored" with values that were not actually current, which I don't think is a problem that has an equivalent for browser extensions!)

falcolas 12y ago

I have personally found that a hosts file can reduce the need for a bunch of those addons - it can block not only ads, but also many forms of tracking. I've found it very refreshing when surfing the web. For reference, I use: http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/

zipperhead 12y ago
I've thought of using hosts file vs. plugins but have never really made the switch. I'm a bit concerned that I'll run into cases like a website is broken due to a hosts file setting, and I can't easily bypass it like I can with a plugin. Do you ever run into situations like this?
- stcredzero 12y ago
  Are there any utilities for management of the hosts file?
  - falcolas 12y ago
    I've never used one aside from a text editor. Plain text file with whitespace delimited items; about as simple as it gets.
  - overdrivetg 12y ago
    Gas Mask on OSX: http://clockwise.ee/ http://clockwise.ee/
- riking 12y ago
  µBlock can import hosts files, and it has an off-switch :)
- falcolas 12y ago
  The only breakage I have ever noticed is the occasional site which has about 30 or so "broken image" placeholders surrounding the content. Otherwise, I don't even notice its presence.
- 12y ago

hackuser 12y ago

A related question: If someone with expertise or data could compare the effectiveness of tracker-blocking solutions, such as Ghostery and Disconnect, it would be helpful.

XzetaU8 12y ago
µBlock vs Adblock Plus vs Ghostery vs Disconnect vs No blocker https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/%C2%B5Block-and-others:-Blocking-ads,-trackers,-malwares#data-diffs https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/%C2%B5Block-and-other...

hackuser 12y ago

Try RequestPolicy. It blocks all requests to domains other than the host's, unless you whitelist them. It comes with optional whitelists you can use for popular sites. On one hand, it's cumbersome, requiring you to whitelist some requests and reload when you visit a new webpage (most sites require a CDN at least). On the other, it's easy to use and good security.

pikzen 12y ago
Additionally, try RequestPolicyContinued[0] because the original RequestPolicy dev has stopped maintaining it. [0] http://requestpolicycontinued.github.io http://requestpolicycontinued.github.io
- XzetaU8 12y ago
  Or try Policeman https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/policeman/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/policeman/

XzetaU8 12y ago

The "based on ABP code" apply only For the Chromium/Chrome version "For the Firefox version of Privacy Badger, we also eschewed the ABP engine in favor of something we wrote ourselves. Don't get me wrong, ABP is a great tool and we learned a lot from its code - but we wanted something as lean and performant as possible....." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7686396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7686396 also ublock makes ABP, Ghostery & Disconnect redundant. https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/%C2%B5Block-and-others:-Blocking-ads,-trackers,-malwares#data-diffs https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/%C2%B5Block-and-other...

steeples 12y ago

AFAIK the only way to do tracking is some combination of images and JS. All these 'blocking' plugins are redundant when those two seemingly elephants in the room are disabled.