Privacy Badger

The EFF has developed a new browser addon that checks if domains are using tracking techniques to monitor you, and 'learns' which ones to block.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/0…nline-tracking

The caveat is that you shouldn't have to "learn" what is an acceptable tracker or what isn't. I do not want *any* of them, and I will keep blocking ALL of them because I never consented for anyone to attempt to track me all over the Internet without my knowledge and consent. So I block ALL social trackers, ads and all this garbage because this is outrageous and I don't feel the least bit of guilt about it.

Confidence in this industry has been completely lost and with good reason. Now I don't want to see any ad on the Internet, ever, and many more people think exactly like me. I will never allow any of it, and if some clickbait blogs have financial problems due to it, though luck.

If ads were decent, I'd never have anything against them. Never did really. A banner here, a banner there, to be honest sometimes I did find some stuff interesting that way.

But internet became a horrible place thanks to aggressive ads. I'm sick of sites where only 10% or even less are proper content and the rest is ads. Not to mention spawning enormous amount of popups and separate tabs/windows on a click. What's worst in this, probably based on my behavior, in other words based on spying on me, most of these ads are pointing me to pay2win facebook/browser scamware games, probably bundled with malware. I don't want to see that crap!

Never used adblocker software, but it seems I'll have to put up one.

I use AdBlock and remove it for sites I support. Look - sites cost money, and just like I expect to be paid, for someone whose content I support I don't mind ads. That said - I have many times messaged site-owners about over-aggressive ads and because no site is SO unique, I will leave if it is too obtrusive.

Also, it is foolish to assume that you are not tracked online pretty much regardless of what you do.

Originally Posted by txa1265
Also, it is foolish to assume that you are not tracked online pretty much regardless of what you do.

This is true.
There is still no proper software that'd put a fog over those trackers by "browsing" stuff you don't usually go for in the background while you're doing nothing.
In my case I'd pay any sum for an app that'd browse and use google on it's own about politics, airplane blueprints, cold fision theories, hollywood less_than_5_stars_on_imdb garbage, etc.
Sure, it'd look I'm interested into stuff I'm not really, hell it'd look if I'm interested into everything. But better to be marked by advertisers as a loco, than seeing hundreds of bloody Travian clones advertisments just because I'm mostly googling for games.

Adds aren't the main problem…
http://www.ted.com/talks/jennifer_go…ou_might_think

Originally Posted by txa1265
I use AdBlock and remove it for sites I support. Look - sites cost money, and just like I expect to be paid, for someone whose content I support I don't mind ads. That said - I have many times messaged site-owners about over-aggressive ads and because no site is SO unique, I will leave if it is too obtrusive.

Also, it is foolish to assume that you are not tracked online pretty much regardless of what you do.

There are ways to minimize or eliminate tracking, any such attempt isn't futile. You can use a VPN, or something like the TOR browser, or a separate browser for browsing controversial sites. It really does work.

To me this is a rotten business model to begin with and I actually try to hasten its fall. If enough people do it maybe they will realize people don't want to be spied upon on the Internet, just like they wouldn't like a private investigator following them everywhere?

Originally Posted by Humanity has risen!
There are ways to minimize or eliminate tracking, any such attempt isn't futile. You can use a VPN, or something like the TOR browser, or a separate browser for browsing controversial sites. It really does work.

To me this is a rotten business model to begin with and I actually try to hasten its fall. If enough people do it maybe they will realize people don't want to be spied upon on the Internet, just like they wouldn't like a private investigator following them everywhere?

Agree - every little bit helps. My thing is that it is ilke a prophylactic - you are only getting increasingly secure, not guaranteed fully protected

https://www.goldenfrog.com/take-back…-and-anonymity

But what about ads - you mention them. For sites you actually use the content from, or enjoy … do you still block / anonymize them? How do you support sites you enjoy?

Originally Posted by txa1265
Agree - every little bit helps. My thing is that it is ilke a prophylactic - you are only getting increasingly secure, not guaranteed fully protected

https://www.goldenfrog.com/take-back…-and-anonymity

But what about ads - you mention them. For sites you actually use the content from, or enjoy … do you still block / anonymize them? How do you support sites you enjoy?

I think that this site does a bit of fearmongering. Not saying that they don't make legitimate points, but they point to a few examples just to say that "hey we're better than them because as a VPN service we don't do any of those mistakes". Just because these things are generally true it doesn't mean that all VPN services betray your privacy. I use Private Internet access and they have a good record in this regard.

And no, I do not allow any ads, because all of them amount to tracking and I will have none of it.

On occasion I will pay for a service though.

What business model do you propose then? Servers cost money, salaries have to be paid. If it can be accessed for free, it means someone is paying for it. Without ads, there are no revenues.
What's the alternative? Paying for every single site you want to visit?

Privacy badger has a number of things in its favour.

Firstly, it's made by the EFF, whereas some of the other privacy addons engage in some rather questionable business models in themselves.

Secondly, the learning system is an interesting approach, that may well defeat techniques missed by simple blacklist models.

Thirdly, they understand that ads are a vital revenue stream, and any advertiser that gives a written guarantee that they do not engage in tracking practices will not be blocked. This seems like a sensible compromise to me.

In general, on the subject of privacy online, it is possible to defeat most tracking using a VPN and a properly configured browser. Of course, if you use things like Google services or Facebook, you can forget it.

Well, it sadly looks more like grandstanding to me. If you want a way to block ads and trackers without having to depend for a for-profit company, there are Adblock Plus forks like Adblock Edge, or there are HOSTS file lists.

I really wonder which major ad network doesn't practice tracking anymore, it's their bread and butter.

I'm fairly baffled as to how you conclude that this is 'grandstanding', but you are of course entitled to your various opinions.

With regard to the percentage of advertisers that practice tracking, I would agree that it is almost all of them. But I think the position of the EFF in offering to unblock those that treat people with respect is pretty reasonable. If it results in 99% of them being blocked, that's up to them, but the door to using ads as a fair revenue stream is open to them.

One alternative is an ads free and tracking free internet, where you have to pay for every single site you wish to access.

I think that just a tracking-free internet would be sufficient. Advertising worked quite happily on televisions, magazines and billboards for a long time, without tracking anyone. Entire commercial TV stations have operated for decades purely on the revenue of simple, untracked advertising. It's not that hard to tailor the ads on any given site to what those visitors are likely to be interested in.

The monetization of people's personal information is a separate gravy train, and straightforward advertising without tracking would work perfectly as a business model.