Questions about programmes like adblock, ublock, and privacy badger.

5    24 Oct 2015 01:00 by u/stanknutz420

I was recently told to get programmes such as adblock, ublock/ublock origin, and privacy badger so that google chrome couldn't track my activity and sell the info to big corporations or whatever. And when i clicked to download they all say they will 1) read and change all my data on the websites i visit, and 2)read my browsing history. Am i downloading the right programs? what do they mean by this and should i be ok with it? Is having these programmes less private than not having them because they pretty much monitor all my shit?

Any help is greatly appreciated. and if i am posting in the wrong subverse can you please direct me to the one i should be asking, Thanks

6 comments

5 u/weezkitty 24 Oct 2015 01:57

I don't believe those will prevent Chrome from tracking you. Just advertisers.

1) read and change all my data on the websites i visit,

This by definition is necessary to block advertisements. It blocks known ad servers and collapses their placeholders hence changing the page

4 u/pocketForceNapkin 24 Oct 2015 01:57

I have privacy badger and ublock origin plus https everywhere. I would also suggest you install https everywhere.

Privacy Badger and https everywhere are made by eff.org, a legit place to get this kind of software from, they also support tor (something you can look into as well).

Stay away from adblock, they allow ads now. /2cents

1 u/pm-me-your-tits-grrl 24 Oct 2015 02:01

They will NOT prevent chrome from doing that. They can, however, block third party things like facebook if set up properly. As for the privileges, they need that to work. No getting around it. The only way to be sure 100% they themselves aren't doing anything is to read the source code.

If you care about privacy my recommendation would be to use firefox, enable their extra privacy stuff in about:config (under privacy.trackingprotection) and then download and properly configure ublock origin and https everywhere. That cuts your surface down to Mozilla, the ublock guy, and the EFF.

0 u/flat_hedgehog 24 Oct 2015 02:05

I have uBlock origins and HTTPS everywhere. What's privacy badger?

2 u/ScientistSupreme 24 Oct 2015 08:37

Privacy Badger is an automatic cookie manager. I've used it for a while and it works pretty well, but it does take trial and error. For a while it disabled some the interactive tools i use, like Github and some login forms.

0 u/flat_hedgehog 24 Oct 2015 13:56

Thanks. I've just added it to Chrome and I'll see how it goes.