Privacy Badger

Privacy Badger
Developer(s) Electronic Frontier Foundation
Initial release 1 May 2014[1]
Stable release 0.2.5 / 18 December 2014
Development status Active
Type Browser extension
License GNU GPL v3[2]
Alexa rank Increase 15,894 (Feb 2015)
Website eff.org/privacybadger
As of Feb 2015

Privacy Badger is a free web browser extension for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, created by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Its purpose is to block advertisements and tracking cookies that do not respect the Do Not Track setting in a user's web browser.[3] The alpha was released on 1 May, 2014,[1] followed by a beta on 21 July, 2014.[4] While some of the code for Privacy Badger is based on Adblock Plus, Privacy Badger only blocks those ads which come with trackers embedded.[3]

Ian Paul, writing for PC World, mentions that Privacy Badger currently "only blocks third-party tracking, not first party", and mentions that prevention of browser fingerprinting is planned for a future release.[5] ArsTechnica notes that if an advertiser makes a commitment to respect Do Not Track requests, their cookies will be unblocked from Privacy Badger.[6] Nathan Willis, writing for LWN.net, describes the green, yellow and red sliders of the Privacy Badger menu as being a "nice visualization aid", making it easy for the user to toggle the trackers on and off, if desired - describing it as much easier to browse through than ad blocking addon interfaces.[7] Kif Leswing writing for GigaOM writes that "Privacy Badger’s blacklist is generated through heuristic blocking, which means it gets better the longer it is used", and writes that at present, Privacy Badger "breaks a lot of websites", but considers it important as it is created by a non-profit company, and sums it up as "more than good enough".[8]

Description

If an advertiser seems to be tracking you across multiple websites without your permission, Privacy Badger automatically blocks that advertiser from loading any more content in your browser. To the advertiser, it's like you suddenly disappeared.[9]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Tom Cheredar (2014-05-02). "EFF’s Privacy Badger tells you when websites ignore ‘Do Not Track’ settings | Electronic Frontier Foundation". Eff.org. Retrieved 2014-05-28.
  2. ↑ Privacy Badger license Electronic Frontier Foundation
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Privacy Badger | Electronic Frontier Foundation". Eff.org. 2014-01-24. Retrieved 2014-05-28.
  4. ↑ https://www.eff.org/press/releases/stop-sneaky-online-tracking-effs-privacy-badger
  5. ↑ Ian Paul @ianpaul. "EFF's new Privacy Badger browser add-on closes the prying eyes of online trackers". PCWorld. Retrieved 2014-05-28.
  6. ↑ Brodkin, Jon (2014-05-02). "EFF “Privacy Badger” plugin aimed at forcing websites to stop tracking users". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2014-05-28.
  7. ↑ "Privacy Badger gives teeth to Do Not Track". Lwn.net. Retrieved 2014-05-28.
  8. ↑ "Not all ad blockers are the same. Here’s why the EFF’s Privacy Badger is different — Tech News and Analysis". Gigaom.com. Retrieved 2014-05-28.
  9. ↑ "Privacy Badger". https://www.eff.org''. Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved 22 July 2014.