Browser Anti-Tracker Comparison

[lxskllr]

Here's a page setup by the Ghostery people comparing the efficacy of different tracker blockers. It should probably be treated with a bit of skepticism since they have a vested interest in promoting their product, but their ranking reflects my experience, and what I know about the different products.

http://www.areweprivateyet.com/

 

[Ketchup]

Looks about right based on my DNTM thread. I think it's interesting how simply selecting to block 3rd party cookies defeats many programs that claim to do so in the category. Weird.

I guess blocking 80% looks good enough to most people, and allows them to make money for letting certain things through.

When I started using Ghostery, I noticed my anonymity on Facebook games (which I did not have with DNTM) so while the results are probably skewed a bit, I bet they are pretty close.

Thanks for sharing lxskllr!

 

[Chiefcrowe]

Thank you, i'm glad someone is doing a study on this at least.

 

[julia14]

Ghostery inflated their numbers by counting blocked first-party cookies in the statistics. This is sort of misleading, since blocking first party cookies is almost totally pointless from a privacy perspective - it's not like Google doesn't know that you're using Google while you're on google.com. Whatever, though - their study.

I don't really feel comfortable using or recommending Ghostery for a couple reasons, though - closed-source privacy software is sort of inherently sketchy, they were caught selling user's data to ad companies (that's their business model), and they don't block anything by default. Definitely not the company I want to trust with full access to my browser...

DNTM is totally worthless, though, yeah.

 

[Ketchup]

Ghostery inflated their numbers by counting blocked first-party cookies in the statistics. This is sort of misleading, since blocking first party cookies is almost totally pointless from a privacy perspective - it's not like Google doesn't know that you're using Google while you're on google.com. Whatever, though - their study.

I don't really feel comfortable using or recommending Ghostery for a couple reasons, though - closed-source privacy software is sort of inherently sketchy, they were caught selling user's data to ad companies (that's their business model), and they don't block anything by default. Definitely not the company I want to trust with full access to my browser...

DNTM is totally worthless, though, yeah.

It took me a few days to realize Ghostery didn't block anything by default. Yeah, a little sneaky there. I am not doubting you, but curious as to your statement about first-party cookies. Can you link me to that info? What section are they inflating that in (on the graphs)?

Also, it says it is blocking Trackers on every site I go to (on the Internet anyway) so even if it still sells a little data, I am still coming out ahead, right?

 

[lxskllr]

Also, it says it is blocking Trackers on every site I go to (on the Internet anyway) so even if it still sells a little data, I am still coming out ahead, right?

They gather data through Ghostrank if you enable it, and sell that to advertisers. I agree with being leery regarding closed source software. If you can't look at the code, they can do anything they want, and the only way you'd know is by probing from the outside. They're also in a position to profit from subverting their users. Not saying they do, or will, but it's a valid concern. I prefer using open source software as much as possible. Even if I can't look at the code(I can't, except for very elementary things), someone else can, and it provides herd immunity.

 

[julia14]

It took me a few days to realize Ghostery didn't block anything by default. Yeah, a little sneaky there.

It's a little more than sneaky. Every study ever done on human/software interaction shows that the vast vast majority of people will never venture outside of the defaults – they know very well that most people won't enable blocking. Given that Ghostery is owned by an ad company (Evidon) with a vested interest in trackers not being blocked, I don't think they can be allowed the benefit of the doubt. “Privacy” software that's specifically built to trick people into thinking they're protected isn't privacy software. Sorry if I come off as a bit of a conspiracy theorist here, but misinformation campaigns by ad companies really bother me.

I am not doubting you, but curious as to your statement about first-party cookies. Can you link me to that info? What section are they inflating that in (on the graphs)?

The relevant sections of the graph are “http-set-cookie-responses”, “cookies added-deleted”, and probably “local storage” sections. Most of the tools they're comparing themselves to don't block first party cookies and stuff, because it's pointless. I haven't looked into the numbers, so I can't tell you exactly how much that skews the results.

Also, it says it is blocking Trackers on every site I go to (on the Internet anyway) so even if it still sells a little data, I am still coming out ahead, right?

Nobody should have their info sold to anyone! If there's anything that people own, it's themselves. (Relevant book: Who Owns the Future, by Jaron Lanier.) Ghostery is the only tool on the linked list that goes behind your back and sells your data to the highest bidder (Maybe DNTM does this too, I wouldn't be surprised). They can't advertise themselves as a privacy solution and then sell out their users to ad companies. Well, they can (legally), but everyone should call them out for doing it.

 

[Ketchup]

It's a little more than sneaky. Every study ever done on human/software interaction shows that the vast vast majority of people will never venture outside of the defaults ...

You're saying I'm weird, thanks! lol

Honestly since I have been observing these things, I am leery of anyone who does something for free on the internet. I remember when I thought ads were the big way they brought in money. Now that I have been looking at cookies, which track where I go and bring ads to me, I realize that all this time I was only seeing a small piece of the pie.

I think I can honestly say I would pay to have a product like Ghostery or DNTM, that actually did what it said, and not take info off the side.

 

[julia14]

Disconnect (https://www.disconnect.me/) is open source privacy software with a non-ad business model. Seems to fit the bill. Adblock edge and co are also must-haves, unless you feel bad about running an ad blocker.

 

[gevorg]

You can also be tracked and identified by the unique nature of your browser's "footprint", even if you have Adblocker/Ghostery enabled. For those who are interested, here is a test for your actual browser with details on what info is being passed to other websites and ways to fix them (not all are easy):

http://ip-check.info/?lang=en (click START TEST)

Also:

http://panopticlick.eff.org/

 

[Ketchup]

Thank you, I will give that I try. I was doing some googling, and I came across this gem:

The reason there was no tracking cookies in the quarantine, is because NIS 2012 doesn't quarantine them. They are very low risk and threat free. ...

http://community.norton.com/t5/Nort...trouble-removing-tracking-cookies/td-p/805474

I guess it depends how to define risk.

 

[fixanoid]

It's a little more than sneaky. Every study ever done on human/software interaction shows that the vast vast majority of people will never venture outside of the defaults – they know very well that most people won't enable blocking. Given that Ghostery is owned by an ad company (Evidon) with a vested interest in trackers not being blocked, I don't think they can be allowed the benefit of the doubt. “Privacy” software that's specifically built to trick people into thinking they're protected isn't privacy software. Sorry if I come off as a bit of a conspiracy theorist here, but misinformation campaigns by ad companies really bother me.



The relevant sections of the graph are “http-set-cookie-responses”, “cookies added-deleted”, and probably “local storage” sections. Most of the tools they're comparing themselves to don't block first party cookies and stuff, because it's pointless. I haven't looked into the numbers, so I can't tell you exactly how much that skews the results.



Nobody should have their info sold to anyone! If there's anything that people own, it's themselves. (Relevant book: Who Owns the Future, by Jaron Lanier.) Ghostery is the only tool on the linked list that goes behind your back and sells your data to the highest bidder (Maybe DNTM does this too, I wouldn't be surprised). They can't advertise themselves as a privacy solution and then sell out their users to ad companies. Well, they can (legally), but everyone should call them out for doing it.

A bit late to the party, sorry. I'm one of Ghostery developers, feel free to ask questions, tho it may be answered faster if you post on our support board.

So, Ghostery does not bill itself as a blocker, therefore we leave everything unblocked at the start so the user may decide what they're comfortable with. This may change in the future through additions to the Ghostery wizard -- its the first thing that should have popped up for all of you upon installation of Ghostery. The very same wizard also has a section where user is told that they need to select what they wonna block, or simply, block all.

Ghostery is not owned by an ad company, but by a company that offers privacy compliance to advertising and publishing industry. If the difference is not obvious to you, I suggest you read up a bit on what Evidon does on its web site. In short, Evidon provides privacy controls that businesses purchase to allow their users to control their privacy settings on their web-sites, in their apps, or directly in the advertising that may be delivered to the user. Evidon is not vested in keeping the users choices "unblocked", in fact it does not care how users configure their installation.

Cookie assumption that julia makes are not valid. Ghostery monitors all types of cookies and will block them from creation or editing if a web site requests: first party, second, or third. This is reported on the areweprivateyet.com same way as for all other addons listed there.

Ghostery does not do anything behind users back. You are referring to the GhostRank feature of addon that is disabled by default. If you do enable it, Ghostery will then send data about trackers found on web-sites as you browse the web. The data is about trackers, not about the user -- Ghostery strips all identifiers both on the sending end (extensions installation) and on the receiving end (our servers) specifically so the data cannot be used to backtrack to any of the millions of users that have GhostRank enabled. For even more information about this, please read this article: http://purplebox.ghostery.com/?p=1016023438

Finally, there were some questions about open source and Ghostery. Ghostery is currently not open sourced, tho it was for a long time. It will be open sourced again in the future, but its taking time to do this, hopefully late this year we will have at least one of the releases opened. That said, Ghostery is a browser extension, as such, its written in JavaScript and is not obfuscated in any way unlike some of the others mentioned here. If you are interested to see whats under the hood, feel free to download any of the releases, rename them to .zip and unpackage anywhere to see full contents.

Cheers.