Home Forums Networks & Cross-Platform Networking Which tracking blocker do you use?

I have Ghostery but Free Tools to Keep Those Creepy Online Ads From Watching You mentions other choices. Which one(s) do you use?

I'd like to tell you, but my tracking blocker blocked your post!

I also use Ghostery and I find it works very well. There are a couple of news sites where I need to disable it in order to read comments, but that's no big deal. It's just reloading the page and then checking my Cookies afterward to delete anything I don't want.

I’m a Ghostery user as well, mostly by ‘first adoption inertia’, so info on alternatives is interesting. That said, the problem with any of these utilities is finding the balance between blocking trackers and proper web site rendition. I find the latter increasingly affected by trackers, even when ad-blockers are disabled (a requirement of more and more web sites). Not infrequently, such adblock refusing sites sport massive numbers of trackers, putting the user in a less than desirable spot, if only because it makes finding the access-critical tracker(s) that much harder.

The argument that site access can be ‘free’ due to the presence of ads (and rarely mentioned trackers) isn’t exactly unfair, but by allowing those sites a single dispensation many tend to grab virtually all of you. It is my impression that undercutting adblocker use and tracker control has become part of many web sites’ policy as the next stage in the ongoing struggle between consumerdata-hungry commerce and privacy-hungry surferdom. And then I’m not even talking about Big Brother, who isn't bothered in the least by such feeble defenses...

In case you didn't spot it, a major revamp of Ghostery was released on February 20:

GHOSTERY 6.0.0 GENERAL RELEASE — SUMMARY

Ghostery 6.0 represents a redesigned version of the product that aspires to be easier to use, more visually engaging, and more accessible to mainstream audience. There have been major improvements to the extension’s user interface designed to more intuitively align it with user needs and behaviors. The product has also been implemented with a revamped web UI that places user education at its center. This includes recategorizing the trackers in the Ghostery database into new, easy-to-understand categories, which have been implemented prominently in a new visual tracker organization hierarchy. Finally, Ghostery 6.0 includes, for the first time, user accounts that enable users to sync their settings across multiple devices.

They seem to have fixed a whack of stuff that has bugged Mac OS X users and have implemented a new customer support implementation (Zendesk). But that remains to be seen ... the proof of the pudding and all that.

Safari > Prefs > Extensions hasn't picked up on it.

Have you actually got it or only just heard about it?

Edit: OK...mind's refreshed. Ghostery 6.0 has only been released for Firefox; the up to date version for Safari is 5.4.9.

You’re right, Ghostery versions differ for the various web browsers, most of them stil being at 5.x. That said, it’s safe to say that a version 6.0 will spread from Firefox to the other browsers in the near future.