Privacy Badger from EFF.org Protects You from Online Tracking

[KaptainBug]

Firefox/Chrome: You already know that everyone is out to track what you do on the internet, and there are tons of great tools to protect yourself. Well, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is jumping into the fray with Privacy Badger, an new add-on that analyzes and blocks third-party tracking automatically.

Privacy Badger is similar to tools like Disconnect, Ghostery, and Adblock Plus, but it takes a slightly different approach (and tries to combine the best of all of those add-ons into one.) Instead of maintaining a blacklist services that track you, call home to advertisers, and keep tabs on what you're doing around the internet, Privacy Badger blocks any and all uniquely identifying cookies (those that collect data of pages you visit across sites, information about your system, or call home to advertising networks) automatically based on their behavior.

The add-on also does this without breaking the sites that you visit, so if you visit Lifehacker.com, for example, it'll screen out any tracking cookies or cookies deposited by advertising networks without disrupting the flow or keeping it from loading. The EFF notes that Privacy Badger isn't an ad-blocking extension, but you'll also notice a number of ads vanish when it's installed as well (since they fall into the category above.)

Privacy Badger is currently in alpha, and you can test it out for Chrome or Firefox at the link below. Once installed, you can click the icon in your toolbar at any time to see the things it's allowed (green), blocked (red), or things on its own whitelist that are necessary for the site to work—but have still been blocked from tracking you (yellow).

http://lifehacker.com/privacy-badger-by-the-eff-protects-your-privacy-from-on-1570759108
https://www.eff.org/privacybadger

 

[Ink]

Warning! Extensions are in alpha stage.

"The EFF notes that Privacy Badger isn't an ad-blocking extension", yet it's based on ABP code.

 

[Petrovic]

Privacy Badger 1.0 Is Here To Stop Online Tracking!




Privacy Badger 1.0 – New Ways to Stop Sneaky Trackers


EFF is excited to announce that today we are releasing version 1.0 of Privacy Badger for Chrome and Firefox. Privacy Badger is a browser extension that automatically blocks hidden trackers that would otherwise spy on your browsing habits as you surf the Web.

More than a quarter of million users have already installed the alpha and beta releases of Privacy Badger. The new Privacy Badger 1.0 release includes many improvements, including being able to detect certain kinds of super-cookies and browser fingerprinting—some of the more subtle and problematic methods that the online tracking industry employs to follow Internet users from site to site. Other enhancements in Privacy Badger 1.0 include: significant UI improvements, translation into 4 different languages (with more on the way), easier customization of your Privacy Badger settings, improvements to stability, and support for Version 1.0 of EFF’s recently announced Do Not Track Policy.

How does Privacy Badger work?
As you browse the Web, Privacy Badger looks at any third party domains that are loaded on a given site and determines whether or not they appear to be tracking you (e.g. by setting cookies that could be used for tracking, or fingerprinting your browser). If the same third party domain appears to be tracking you on three or more different websites, Privacy Badger will conclude that the third party domain is a tracker and block future connections to it.

For certain websites, if Privacy Badger were to block an embedded domain entirely it would break the site's core functionality. For example, if Privacy Badger were to block 'licensebuttons.net,' Creative Commons buttons would no longer load. In these cases Privacy Badger blocks the domain from setting or receiving any cookies or 'referer' headers, but allows the embedded content to load.



Putting an End to Non-consensual Browser Tracking
Advertising companies have made the non-consensual tracking of people's Web browsing habits alarmingly widespread. Privacy Badger is our answer to that problem.

Often, users aren't aware that they're being tracked around the Internet by dozens of different companies. Even if you know what’s up, changing browser settings to make yourself safe is essentially impossible. The advertising industry has proposed opt outs that are better described as “pretend not to track”, with an emphasis on hiding the symptoms of trackingrather than actually preventing it. But users still need a way to opt-out of the non-consensual collection of their data.

To be clear, EFF isn’t against websites seeking to build businesses around advertising. More business models means a more vibrant Web. But advertising cannot come at the expense of user privacy and the inviolable principle of consent. Until the online tracking industry changes its ways, the only option for users is to protect themselves by installing tools such as Privacy Badger.

Privacy Badger 1.0 works in tandem with the new Do Not Track (DNT) policy, announced earlier this week by EFF, Disconnect, Medium, Mixpanel, Adblock, and DuckDuckGo. Installing Privacy Badger also enables the DNT flag as a clear signal to sites that the user wants to opt-out of online tracking. Privacy Badger inspects third party sites for a commitment to honor that request under the DNT Policy; if it finds one, it will unblock that third party by default. That way, web services that do the right thing by users can continue to collect anonymous data or show anonymous ads, while those that don’t will be foiled by the Badger’s protections.

With DNT and Privacy Badger 1.0, Internet users have important new tools to block stealthy online tracking and the exploitation of their browsing history. Download Privacy Badger now, protect yourself against invasions of privacy, and help to build a cleaner, leaner and more privacy-friendly Web for all of us.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/08/privacy-badger-10-here-stop-online-tracking

Chrome
FireFox

 

[vindiesel]

Hello fellow I have already installed it proves a few days to see if everything is fine, thanks.

 

[Petrovic]

Privacy Badger 1.0.3
Changelogs:
* Fix slow options page bug
* Fix bug where privacy badger was blocking things it shouldn't when cookies were disabled in firefox
* Remove ABP code dependencies
* Ukranian Localization
* Improvements to the first run page
Privacy Badger

 

[Ink]

I've installed it in Firefox, alongside Dr. Web Link Checker (also blocks Ads and DNT) and now uninstalling Disconnect. Thanks for sharing.

 

[toto_10]

I have Adguard Desktop installed on my PC. Is it recommended to use Privacy Badger too or are they doing the same thing?

 

[Handsome Recluse]

I have Adguard Desktop installed on my PC. Is it recommended to use Privacy Badger too or are they doing the same thing?

Never found it block anything when English/Easylist and Social Media is blocked. Add EasyPrivacy/Spyware and it shouldn't catch anything. Maybe block cookies of facebook.net depending on which social media filter is used although you can add the anti-facebook/anti-third party social list even though blocking facebook.net or its cookies breaks facebook comments.

 

[toto_10]

Never found it block anything when English/Easylist and Social Media is blocked. Add EasyPrivacy/Spyware and it shouldn't catch anything. Maybe block cookies of facebook.net depending on which social media filter is used although you can add the anti-facebook/anti-third party social list even though blocking facebook.net or its cookies breaks facebook comments.

I still see Privacy Badger blocking some domain trackers when I search on google. You got any solution for this? I did everything you said and didn't help.

 

[Handsome Recluse]

I still see Privacy Badger blocking some domain trackers when I search on google. You got any solution for this? I did everything you said and didn't help.

Did you reset Privacy Badger's list and open various sites with an adblocker to know for sure that it does block something?
I haven't tested with Adguard Desktop so I don't know the interactions but using an adblock extension with the given filters with Privacy Badger it doesn't block anything.

 

[toto_10]

Thank you very much. I reinstalled Privacy Badger and now it doesn't block anything. Adguard eats it all =)

Can you recommend other filters besides the default ones?

 

[Handsome Recluse]

Thank you very much. I reinstalled Privacy Badger and now it doesn't block anything. Adguard eats it all =)

Can you recommend other filters besides the default ones?

You opened many sites with the same third party trackers?
Haven't done any benchmarks but looking at the benchmarks of other people, aside from the trinity of

• English/Easylist
• Spyware/EasyPrivacy/Simplified Domains
• Social Media/Fanboy's Social Media/Fanboy's Annoyances

(Pick only one of each)
The author of uBlock Origin seems to think Peter Lowe's is good and can be supplemented by blocking additional sites from uBlock Origin's default of Easylist+EasyPrivacy+Peter Lowe's using his own filter lists named uBlock - Privacy which can be found on FilterLists under uAssets Privacy which blocks common unneeded third party sites that aren't covered like previously LinkedIn which doesn't show up anymore. There's also uAssets Unbreak from the same source to unbreak sites broken by Peter Lowe's or other hosts filters that uBlock Origin supports. Windows Security seems to like uAssets Experimental because of the surrogates.

 

[Handsome Recluse]

Peter Lowe's is already in Adguard. The other filters are cosmetic like Annoyances.
If you want to go further, you can try the very aggressive ABP Japanese Filters which breaks many a sites.