Privacy Badger

Last updated

Privacy Badger
Developer(s) Electronic Frontier Foundation
Initial release1 May 2014;9 years ago (2014-05-01) [1]
Stable release
2024.2.6 [2] / 6 February 2024;2 months ago (6 February 2024)
Repository
Type Browser extension
License GNU GPL v3 [3]
Website privacybadger.org
As ofJanuary 2020

Privacy Badger is a free and open-source browser extension for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and Firefox for Android created by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Its purpose is to promote a balanced approach to internet privacy between consumers and content providers by blocking advertisements and tracking cookies that do not respect the Do Not Track setting in a user's web browser. [4] A second purpose, served by free distribution, has been to encourage membership in and donation to the EFF. [5]

Contents

Description

The EFF states: "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." [6] Privacy Badger works by detecting the presence of content loaded from third-party domains when you visit a website, then blocking those domains which are determined to be tracking you. [7] : B4  Controls on the software allow selective blocking of the third-party domains based on user preference. [7] : B4  Unlike adblockers, Privacy Badger only blocks those ads which come with embedded trackers. [4]

Privacy Badger has been noted as one recommended tool in a set of tools to protect online privacy. [8]

In October 2020, following security disclosures by the Google Security Team, Privacy Badger changed its default behavior. While it would previously learn to block new trackers heuristically after installed, it now defaults to blocking only trackers it already knows from automated testing before release. While it can still be configured to learn heuristically, it is no longer the default option because it can be exploited by third-parties to fingerprint the user based on trackers it blocks. [9]

History

The alpha version was released on 1 May 2014, [1] followed by a beta on 21 July 2014. [10] In April 2017, the EFF announced that Privacy Badger had surpassed one million users. [11]

Reception

Several publications reported on Privacy Badger in May 2014, following its alpha release.

Ian Paul, for PC World , mentions that Privacy Badger "only blocks third-party tracking, not first party", and mentions that prevention of browser fingerprinting is planned for a future release. [12]

Ars Technica notes that if an advertiser makes a commitment to respect Do Not Track requests, their cookies will be unblocked from Privacy Badger. [13]

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 add-on interfaces. [14]

Kif Leswing writing for Gigaom writes, "Privacy Badger’s blacklist is generated through heuristic blocking, which means it gets better the longer it is used", and wrote in May 2014 that Privacy Badger "breaks a lot of websites", but considers it important as it is created by a nonprofit organization, and sums it up as "more than good enough". [15]

Similar blockers

Privacy Badger belongs to a class of free tracker blockers which function as web browser plugins. [16] : B1  Tracker blockers similar to Privacy Badger include Disconnect, uBlock Origin, Redmorph and Ghostery. [16] : B1  [17] [18] Privacy Badger has also been compared favorably to Blur, which has an annual subscription fee. [19]

See also

Related Research Articles

Internet privacy involves the right or mandate of personal privacy concerning the storage, re-purposing, provision to third parties, and display of information pertaining to oneself via the Internet. Internet privacy is a subset of data privacy. Privacy concerns have been articulated from the beginnings of large-scale computer sharing and especially relate to mass surveillance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HTTP cookie</span> Small pieces of data stored by a web browser while on a website

HTTP cookies are small blocks of data created by a web server while a user is browsing a website and placed on the user's computer or other device by the user's web browser. Cookies are placed on the device used to access a website, and more than one cookie may be placed on a user's device during a session.

A device fingerprint or machine fingerprint is information collected about the software and hardware of a remote computing device for the purpose of identification. The information is usually assimilated into a brief identifier using a fingerprinting algorithm. A browser fingerprint is information collected specifically by interaction with the web browser of the device.

Switzerland is an open-source network monitoring utility developed and released by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Its goal is to monitor network traffic between two systems running the program to see if the user's Internet service provider is violating network neutrality, like Comcast did in 2007 with the BitTorrent protocol.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet civil liberties and ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tor (network)</span> Free and open-source anonymity network based on onion routing

Tor, short for The Onion Router, is free and open-source software for enabling anonymous communication. It directs Internet traffic via a free, worldwide volunteer overlay network that consists of more than seven thousand relays.

Web tracking is the practice by which operators of websites and third parties collect, store and share information about visitors’ activities on the World Wide Web. Analysis of a user's behaviour may be used to provide content that enables the operator to infer their preferences and may be of interest to various parties, such as advertisers. Web tracking can be part of visitor management.

Do Not Track (DNT) is a formerly official HTTP header field, designed to allow internet users to opt-out of tracking by websites—which includes the collection of data regarding a user's activity across multiple distinct contexts, and the retention, use, or sharing of data derived from that activity outside the context in which it occurred.

Ghostery is a free and open-source privacy and security-related browser extension and mobile browser application. Since February 2017, it has been owned by the German company Cliqz International GmbH. The code was originally developed by David Cancel and associates.

IronVest, is a browser extension for blocking trackers on the Internet developed by Abine, a privacy company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, and first released for Firefox in March 2011. There is a free version, and a paid one with more features.

HTTPS Everywhere is a discontinued free and open-source browser extension for Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Brave, Vivaldi and Firefox for Android, which was developed collaboratively by The Tor Project and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). It automatically makes websites use a more secure HTTPS connection instead of HTTP, if they support it. The option "Encrypt All Sites Eligible" makes it possible to block and unblock all non-HTTPS browser connections with one click. Due to the widespread adoption of HTTPS on the World Wide Web, and the integration of HTTPS-only mode on major browsers, the extension was retired in January 2023.

Canvas fingerprinting is one of a number of browser fingerprinting techniques for tracking online users that allow websites to identify and track visitors using the HTML5 canvas element instead of browser cookies or other similar means. The technique received wide media coverage in 2014 after researchers from Princeton University and KU Leuven University described it in their paper The Web never forgets.

The Open Wireless Movement hosted at OpenWireless.org is an Internet activism project which seeks to increase Internet access by encouraging people and organizations to configure or install software on their own wireless router to offer a separate public guest network or to make a single public wireless access point. If many people did this, then a ubiquitous global public wireless network would be created which would achieve and surpass the goal of increasing Internet access.

Disconnect is a partly open source browser extension and mobile app designed to stop non-consensual third party trackers, and providing private web search and private web browsing. On mobile, it is available for Android and iPhone. It was developed by Brian Kennish and Casey Oppenheim. Disconnect-Search had once been the default search engine of the security-focused Tor Browser, which now uses DuckDuckGo.

Google's changes to its privacy policy on March 16, 2012, enabled the company to share data across a wide variety of services. These embedded services include millions of third-party websites that use AdSense and Analytics. The policy was widely criticized for creating an environment that discourages Internet innovation by making Internet users more fearful and wary of what they do online.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brave (web browser)</span> Chromium-based open-source web browser

Brave is a free and open-source web browser developed by Brave Software, Inc. based on the Chromium web browser. Brave is a privacy-focused browser, which automatically blocks most advertisements and website trackers in its default settings. Users can turn on optional ads that reward them for their attention in the form of Basic Attention Tokens (BAT), which can be used as a cryptocurrency or to make payments to registered websites and content creators.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yan Zhu</span> American computer security engineer

Yan Zhu is a security engineer, open web standards author, technology speaker, and open source contributor. In 2015 she was recognized as one of Forbes 30 Under 30.

Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) is a type of web tracking. It groups people into "cohorts" based on their browsing history for the purpose of interest-based advertising. FLoC was being developed as a part of Google's Privacy Sandbox initiative, which includes several other advertising-related technologies with bird-themed names. Despite "federated learning" in the name, FLoC does not utilize any federated learning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Privacy Sandbox</span> Google initiative to create web standards for advertising without the use of third-party cookies

The Privacy Sandbox is an initiative led by Google to create web standards for websites to access user information without compromising privacy. Its core purpose is to facilitate online advertising by sharing a subset of user private information without the use of third-party cookies. The initiative includes a number of proposals, many of these proposals have bird-themed names which are changed once the corresponding feature reaches general availability. The technology include Topics API, Protected Audience, Attribution Reporting, Private Aggregation, Shared Storage and Fenced Frames as well as other proposed technologies. The project was announced in August 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Eckersley (computer scientist)</span> Australian computer scientist (1978/1979–2022)

Peter Daniel Eckersley was an Australian computer scientist, computer security researcher and activist. From 2006 to 2018, he worked at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, including as chief computer scientist and head of AI policy. In 2018, he left the EFF to become director of research at the Partnership on AI, a position he held until 2020. In 2021, he co-founded the AI Objectives Institute.

References

  1. 1 2 Tom Cheredar (2 May 2014). "EFF's Privacy Badger tells you when websites ignore 'Do Not Track' settings | Electronic Frontier Foundation". Eff.org. Retrieved 28 May 2014.
  2. ↑ "Privacy Badger 2024.2.6". 6 February 2024. Retrieved 17 February 2024.
  3. ↑ Privacy Badger license Electronic Frontier Foundation
  4. 1 2 "Privacy Badger FAQ". Privacy Badger. Electronic Frontier Foundation. 24 January 2014. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
  5. ↑ Chen, Brian X. (28 May 2017). "Control Those Nosy Apps". Spending Well. Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Honolulu, Hawaii. New York Times. p. B7 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ↑ "Privacy Badger FAQ". Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved 22 July 2014.
  7. 1 2 Chen, Brian X.; Singer, Natasha (22 February 2016). "Defending against Web snoops". Trending. LNP Always Lancaster. Vol. 221, no. 250. Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Steinman Communications. New York Times. pp. B1, B4 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ↑ Komando, Kim (7 September 2014). "Steps to take to improve your browser privacy". Voices. Argus Leader. Vol. 127, no. 250. Sioux Falls, South Dakota: Gannett. USA Today. p. 10C – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ↑ "Privacy Badger Is Changing to Protect You Better". Privacy Badger. Electronic Frontier Foundation. 7 October 2020. Retrieved 4 February 2021.
  10. ↑ "Stop sneaky online tracking with EFF's Privacy Badger" (Press release). Electronic Frontier Foundation. 21 July 2014. Retrieved 4 June 2015.
  11. ↑ Quintin, Cooper (3 April 2017). "One Million Badgers". Electronic Frontier Foundation. Archived from the original on 4 August 2017. Retrieved 5 April 2017.
  12. ↑ Paul, Ian (2 May 2014). "EFF's new Privacy Badger browser add-on closes the prying eyes of online trackers". PC World . Retrieved 28 May 2014.
  13. ↑ Brodkin, Jon (2 May 2014). "EFF "Privacy Badger" plugin aimed at forcing websites to stop tracking users". Ars Technica . Archived from the original on 8 July 2017. Retrieved 28 May 2014.
  14. ↑ Willis, Nathan (7 May 2014). "Privacy Badger gives teeth to Do Not Track". LWN.net . Archived from the original on 28 December 2017. Retrieved 28 May 2014.
  15. ↑ Leswing, Kif (11 May 2014). "Not all ad blockers are the same. Here's why the EFF's Privacy Badger is different". Gigaom . Archived from the original on 28 July 2018. Retrieved 28 May 2014.
  16. 1 2 Chen, Brian X.; Singer, Natasha (22 February 2016). "Defending against Web snoops". Trending. LNP Always Lancaster. Vol. 221, no. 250. Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Steinman Communications. New York Times. pp. B1, B4 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. ↑ Gelles, Jeff (28 June 2015). "Evading Trackers". Consumer. The Philadelphia Inquirer (City & Suburbs ed.). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Philadelphia Media Network. p. E12 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. ↑ Summers, Timothy (14 October 2017). "Protect your privacy during turbulent times". Opinion. Elko Daily Free Press. Vol. 134, no. 205. Elko, Nevada: Lee Enterprises. p. A4 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. ↑ Liedtke, Michael (17 March 2015). "5 things to do to keep NSA from prying into your email". Innovations. The Oklahoman. Vol. 124, no. 71. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: Oklahoma Publishing Co. Associated Press. p. 2C.
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