Ghostery is free because some of our users anonymously and voluntarily opt-in to share data with us about the sites and trackers the extension encounters.

If you choose to share tracker data with us, this is how it would work:

1. As you visit a site, Ghostery identifies and collects data regarding the site and its trackers.
2. Ghostery uses this data to improve our products to create a cleaner, faster, and safer web.

The more users that join the Human Web, the better it gets for everyone. Would you like to participate?

What data does Ghostery collect?

If you opt-in to share your data, Ghostery collects the following information:

• Trackers identified by the Ghostery Browser Extension
• Blocking status of the trackers
• Domains identified as serving trackers
• Time it takes for the page and trackers to load
• Trackers" position on the page
• Browser in which the Ghostery Browser Extension has been installed
• Browser language
• Standard web server log information (i.e. web request)
• Data sent in response to that request
• Timestamp for the request page
• Tracker weight (megabytes of data attributable to each tracker)
• Tracker appearance on any visited webpage

To learn more about our information practices see our Privacy Statement.

Learn More

The Human Web is built using world-leading privacy-by-design practices that ensures that any data that is collected is done completely anonymously without any personally identifiable information. To achieve this, the Human Web implements two core components: its data collection framework and its proxy network.

The Human Web data collection framework requires that the data points contributed by users are evaluated only as a single, aggregated event, disentangling these signals from any personally-identifiable information such as timestamps or user IDS. Furthermore, The Human Web filters out any sensitive or personal information from URLs that are considered unsafe (e.g., twitter.com/username) that can be used to identify an individual person. Thus, we are neither able to combine data from multiple entries or multiple visits to websites, nor to link this information with any personal information, like email addresses or user IDs, that can be used to identify an individual.

As a further safety precaution, this information is sent through the Human Web proxy network, a series of peer-to-peer proxies that remove information like the user IP addresses, making it virtually impossible to determine who or where the data comes from. The proxy network itself is blind to the content of the data its sending, adding a further security measure to the process. Consequently, all data we collect is virtually unidentifiable by anyone, including ourselves, so that even if our security were breached by a hacker or outside organization, there would be absolutely no way to tie this information to individuals.

The specific data contributed through the Human Web includes:

• Non-Private URLs
• Search queries along with Search Engine Results Pages
• Suspicious URLs that are potential phishing websites
• Information related to safe and unsafe trackers
• Information related to the prevalence and performance of trackers

Good day to everyone and all that other stuff, dear friends, acquaintances, readers, admirers and other individuals.

I have already repeatedly spoken, written and talked about how important browser plugins such as (analog) and, especially NoScript are for security and simply comfortable surfing the Internet. Not just important, but necessary (like soap near the sink).

Today I would like to share with you another extension that simply must be in your arsenal and accompany your journey on the Internet anywhere and everywhere. Frankly speaking, I thought that it had long been a standard for many, but after conducting (about February) some analysis and survey, I found out that not everyone is familiar with this wonderful miracle of programmer thought.

Let's get started.

general information

Let's start with an introduction and description of their extensions by the developers themselves:

In general, this is the case and, for example, all sorts of buttons for reposts, likes and all that other stuff (on any sites) are mainly intended not so much for your convenience as for collecting and analyzing the resources you visit, statistics, interests and any other data, and, subsequently and in the best case, displaying relevant advertising to you.

First of all, all popular social networks are guilty of this, secondly, any statistical systems (i.e., as a result, almost all sites, because webmasters set their counters), like Google Analytics, Yandex.Metrica, etc. Advertising scripts, all kinds of widgets, and even seemingly harmless website design elements implemented via JavaScript do the same thing.

In addition, the fact is that even when you log out somewhere (and, as a rule, no one does this now), cookies and many other interesting things are stored in the cache, with the help of which you can collect various kinds of statistics, providing various kinds of functionality (what is the primary goal, think for yourself). So it goes.

So, it deals with the protection of your personal data, privacy and, as a result, security, by preventing the loading and execution of elements that are recognized as bugs. personal data. I think that this information is enough for you, and you can read the rest on the extension page, and we will move on to installation.

Depending on the browser, there is different pages, from where you can install this plugin. For Firefox, for Opera, well, for Google Chrome it lives here. I will talk about installation and use using the latter as an example.

Installation, configuration and use (using the example of Google Chome)

The principle of operation is in many ways similar to No-Script, but at the same time it is much more humane for the end user and causes less shudder in terms of control and perception.

For Google Chrome you can, where we double-click the “Install” button to, oddly enough, install the extension:

After installation you will find short excursion, which will allow you to familiarize yourself with the description of the plugin, its nuances, settings, and more.

In particular, you will be invited to participate in improving the world and all that other stuff. The choice, of course, is yours, but I think this is a formality:

Well, actually, on last tab You will be prompted to select the types of data and bugs that you want to block. In general, you can select all of them and then disable unnecessary ones, if you need them at all (let’s say, a widget you know on the site disappears somewhere):

Actually, at this point the installation will be completed and you can start using it, which is not particularly difficult.

Among all the extension icons, you should see a ghost icon in the upper right corner; click on it. A small tutorial will appear. Read it, fortunately it’s not complicated:

For those who have not installed it yet, but want to read this tutorial, I will duplicate its text here:

• Report window
  In the report window, you can view the list of bugs found and configure the parameters for blocking them;
• Blocking options
  To turn on or off the blocking of a particular bug, use the buttons to the right of its name;
• Lock
  If the toggle switch knob is located on the right and is colored red, then the bug blocking is turned on;
• Unblocking
  If the toggle switch handle is located on the left and is colored blue, then the bug blocking is turned off. This setting applies to all bugs by default;
• Exceptions
  If you enable the button with a checkmark (it will turn green), Ghostery will always allow this bug to be loaded on the current site;
• Pause blocking
  To pause blocking of all bugs, click on the " Pause blocking". To resume blocking, press the same button again;
• White list
  To allow downloading of all bugs on the current site, click on the "Add to white list" button. To remove a site from the white list, click on the same button again;
• Setting up Ghostery
  To visit the Settings page, click the icon and then the Settings button.

So that you don’t get scared by the large number of letters, in fact, I’ll show you what it looks like in real life:

As you can see, everything is visually clear and simple: colored toggle switches and beautiful buttons, clicks are accompanied by prompts and so on. " Pause blocking"You can even pause the plugin and see how it will be without it.

By the way, it can block Gravatar, so if you want to see avatars on the site (and not only), then perhaps you should disable this blocking;) In general, the same applies to the Google AJAX Search API (responsible for searching on this and some other sites where search is implemented using Google scripts).

Actually, that's all. Let's move on to the afterword.

Afterword

Somehow it’s like this, use it to your advantage, with pleasure, and advise others, after all, confidentiality + security is everything. Not No-Script, of course, but in the household (and/or in conjunction with it) it will be very useful, especially for those who do not use it first.

As always, if you have any questions, thoughts, additions, etc., please feel free to comment on this post.

Stay with us;)

The Ghostery extension for Chrome prevents advertisers, social media, and other online services from collecting and storing your online surfing and shopping habits.

Ghostery is a small but powerful extension that gives you more control of your online privacy and therefore makes browsing the web safer. It has a easy to view and understand design and color scheme. The extension will alert you with a bubble that is slightly transparent and blends well with the webpage you are on, so as not to be interrupted.

In testing, Ghostery performed very well and notified us about numerous trackers scripts, images, and objects, from these it allowed us to select which to block. Ghostery is well configured and trackers which are blocked from from one website are then blocked from all.

Although Ghostery blocks links very well, this has the tendency to sometimes results in certain websites becoming not view-able. If this happens you may have to test each blocked tracker individually to ascertain what has caused the issue, and this obviously can take time. Overall, the Ghostery extension for Chrome provides a high quality security service that gives you good control over your browsing.

The protection of personal information is an extremely important issue, especially on the Internet. It’s no secret that the services that everyone knows, for example, Google and Yandex search engines, social networks In contact with And Facebook From their first day, they collect a dossier on each visitor for effective targeted advertising of goods and services. This is their bread, business, money. Of course, the average web surfer does not need such protection at all, and if you do not use specialized software like , then be sure to experiment with extensions for blocking tracking elements of web pages. One of best solutions– multi-browser plugin Ghostery, which will be discussed below.

So, Ghostery is a free Russified extension for browsers, and Internet Explorer, which protects the user’s confidential information when visiting websites. The plugin easily finds and blocks unnecessary scripts (“bugs”), such as Yandex.Direct advertising modules, Google Analytics tools, buttons social networks, chat forms - in total more than 2000 elements from 500 interested services.

Once activated Ghostery will instantly identify all the bugs that are watching you, they will appear in a purple pop-up window and in a drop-down list button with a blue ghost. Look how many "bugs" are found on home page popular free classifieds board Avito (screenshot)! The rest is clear: by moving the sliders, you can block unnecessary elements. If you are in doubt about your choice, then by clicking on any “bug” you will receive full information both about it and about its developers.

In this video, we'll look at a browser extension called Ghostery, which allows you to provide the basics of anonymity on the Internet. But in order to more clearly understand what kind of anonymity we are talking about, let’s install this extension and, while studying its operation, consider various systems tracking user activity.

I will be reviewing Ghostery's work Google browser Chrome, however this extension also works in Mozilla Firefox and Opera, but is not supported by Internet Explorer. Therefore, for Internet Explorer we will consider alternative options.

And so, let's get started, to install this extension go to ( Menu\Settings\Extensions\View gallery\Ghostery\ Install). To the right of the address bar we now have a ghost icon; this icon will display the activity of the program.

Now let's move on to the program settings ( Ghostery\Settings\Settings):

Data collection – when the Ghostrank function is enabled, when unknown web bugs or sites appear, this data will be sent to the program server to replenish the database;

Auto update – automatic update information about new bugs;

Blocking – here we indicate which bugs to block and which not. In general, a web bug itself is a script that runs on a website when you visit it or perform certain actions, and in the program they are divided into the following categories:

1) Analytics– bugs that are designed to collect statistics. They send information such as the number of visitors, their browser types, country, region, etc.

3) Confidentiality– collecting information based on your interests. To make it easier to understand, let’s imagine the following situation; perhaps it has happened to you. We went to the online store website to ask how much watches cost on the Internet, just out of curiosity. As a result, you found out the information you needed and went to the news site. The news site contains teaser advertising, i.e. advertising with an image and a small description, which is already annoying everyone. And after a while you notice that you are being shown an advertisement for watches, go to another site, the same thing. Those. watch advertisements begin to haunt you all over the Internet.

In this situation, the web bug transmitted information about the topic in which you were interested, and the service, in conjunction with teaser networks, began to inundate you with similar offers in order to sell the product.

4) Lighthouses– tracking user activity. This is how many times a particular link was clicked, etc.

You can add a list of sites to the white list for which Ghostery will not block bugs, but this is easier to do while the program is running than to manually block the necessary sites.

Let's block all the bugs by pressing the button ( Select all\Save) and try to go to any site, for example the video hosting site fimlix.net. The pop-up notification displays which bugs the program has found and which of them are blocked. Since we specified blocking of all known bugs, the program blocked everything it found.

By clicking on the ghost icon, a window appears with more detailed description blocked web bugs. Here we can disable or enable certain bugs completely or for certain sites, pause the blocking, or add the site to the white list.

Actually, that’s all the work of the program. To install this extension for Mozilla Firefox ( Menu\Add-ons\Search for add-ons\Ghostery), for Opera ( Opera\ Extensions \ View extensions gallery \ Search for add-ons \Ghostery\ Add toOpera)

But again, as I said this program is not supported by Internet Explorer, so we will use another method in it, this is adding anti-tracking lists (Menu \ Configure add-ons \ Tracking protection \ Get tracking protection list from the Internet \ Add all lists). In Internet Explorer, the blocking is displayed in front of the refresh icon in blue. As you can see, these lists also do a good job with advertising. The only negative is that it is not displayed detailed information about what was found and what was blocked.