Security and user privacy protections included in browsers, ad blockers, and anti-tracking extensions are not as secure as everyone believes, a team of three academics from the Catholic University in Leuven, Belgium (KU Leuven) have revealed yesterday.
Their work consisted of analyzing anti-tracking settings that are built into modern browsers, but also the ones provided by some popular extensions (add-ons).
Researchers analyzed seven browsers and 46 extensions
Researchers looked at how browsers prevent third-party services —such as advertising companies— from tracking users via cross-site requests and persistent cookies. Several browsers have received built-in support for such features in the past two years —such as Firefox's new Tracking Protection feature, or Opera's built-in ad blocker.
In addition, the research trio also looked at two types of browser extensions —ad blockers and tracking protection add-ons— both of which advertise themselves as tools to prevent advertisers from tracking users via persistent cookies.
