Alternatives to Ghostery

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lyceus

Alternatives to Ghostery

Unread post by lyceus » 2012-06-18, 04:30

Hi!

I've using Ghostery for some time, but for some reason I start to feel that it doesn't made its work as its used to be. I mean, I start to see that some pages start to "remember" what I did on Facebook and that didn't happened in old versions of Ghostery. This could be paranoic or not, but I would see if someone found another replacement for this add-on.

I know I could search on Google, but I wouldn't like to end with something worst trying to fix this trouble.

Thanks in advance!

megaman

Re: Alternatives to Ghostery

Unread post by megaman » 2012-06-18, 04:40

Using Facebook and Google? Then Ghostery seems useless when you are going to the companies that it is trying to block.

It works fine on my end, or what do you mean on "remember"?

lyceus

Re: Alternatives to Ghostery

Unread post by lyceus » 2012-06-18, 04:47

megaman wrote:Using Facebook and Google? Then Ghostery seems useless when you are going to the companies that it is trying to block.

It works fine on my end, or what do you mean on "remember"?
They start to "remember" when I share pages. Like "you had share X histories in FB from here. Do you want to use this FireFox plug-in (link) for made this eaiser? They didn't do that in the past. And no is not a lazy cookie cleaning as I delete them often.

megaman

Re: Alternatives to Ghostery

Unread post by megaman » 2012-06-18, 04:56

lobocursor wrote:They start to "remember" when I share pages. Like "you had share X histories in FB from here. Do you want to use this FireFox plug-in (link) for made this eaiser? They didn't do that in the past. And no is not a lazy cookie cleaning as I delete them often.
They did make some updates some time ago, I have yet to see the prompt, but I do not share much.

jaycelou

Re: Alternatives to Ghostery

Unread post by jaycelou » 2012-06-18, 05:07

I removed Ghostery about 2 weeks ago and replace it with Do Not Track Plus https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/donottrackplus/?src=userprofile. It serve my purpose well. ;)

lyceus

Re: Alternatives to Ghostery

Unread post by lyceus » 2012-06-18, 05:20

jaycelou wrote:I removed Ghostery about 2 weeks ago and replace it with Do Not Track Plus https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/donottrackplus/?src=userprofile. It serve my purpose well. ;)
Thank you, I'll give that a try! :)

megaman

Re: Alternatives to Ghostery

Unread post by megaman » 2012-06-18, 05:23

Well, I tried DNT Plus, but I did not like it, it is a great alternative, though.

Also, there is RequestPolicy, very powerful but I have to allow over 1000 times, it is painful.

steviem1

Re: Alternatives to Ghostery

Unread post by steviem1 » 2012-06-18, 15:10

I've been running Ghostery and DNT + in tandem for a while now without problems and they seem to be doing the job, but not sure if there are any benefits running both, on balance I prefer DNT + (though, a little more configurability might be useful ) hence will probably uninstall Ghostery eventually.

dark_moon

Re: Alternatives to Ghostery

Unread post by dark_moon » 2012-06-18, 16:02

Why you dont simple use a cookie manager addon, like "cs lite mod" with "no script" ?

lyceus

Re: Alternatives to Ghostery

Unread post by lyceus » 2012-06-19, 01:34

dark_moon wrote:Why you dont simple use a cookie manager addon, like "cs lite mod" with "no script" ?
Because I develop websites and browse several pages. I used no script in the past but it was too aggressive and I did spend more time allowing script access than check the pages.

lyceus

Re: Alternatives to Ghostery

Unread post by lyceus » 2012-06-19, 01:39

steviem1 wrote:I've been running Ghostery and DNT + in tandem for a while now without problems and they seem to be doing the job, but not sure if there are any benefits running both, on balance I prefer DNT + (though, a little more configurability might be useful ) hence will probably uninstall Ghostery eventually.
Ghostery blocks all the tracker in all pages so far I did used it. DNT+ blocks them per site so this is more handy for me. ;)

As I told, I found odd that a webpage (http://www.allaboutlifechallenges.org/spanish/) that Ghostery supposedly blocks all Facebook plugins, since May start to offer me a plugin for share pages "since I do that often".

Now with DNT+ the page looks normal, just ask me where to share the page and not offer me anything again. I know this is a small thing but well I found finally some traces about Moonchild's fears about Ghostery: Now that is private owned it seems to "forget" to block some stuff. ;)

lyceus

Re: Alternatives to Ghostery

Unread post by lyceus » 2012-06-19, 01:41

megaman wrote:Well, I tried DNT Plus, but I did not like it, it is a great alternative, though.

Also, there is RequestPolicy, very powerful but I have to allow over 1000 times, it is painful.
I'll did check DNT+ but well I won't close my alternatives to it only, in case that DNT+ start to forget to close windows like Ghostery. Thank you! :)

jaycelou

Re: Alternatives to Ghostery

Unread post by jaycelou » 2012-06-19, 02:38

lobocursor wrote:...Now that is private owned it seems to "forget" to block some stuff. ;)
This is a business world, nothing is forgotten, only question is what to allow and what to block. Until one day, DNT+ become another Ghostery, than a new DNT++ (maybe :D ) will be there to replace it, and the cycle repeats.

Blacklab
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Re: Alternatives to Ghostery

Unread post by Blacklab » 2012-06-21, 23:23

Not sure this is strictly on topic as Ghostery IE Plugin turned out to be the culprit, but it may amuse you all.......

Spent all afternoon struggling with DuckDuckGo - was getting very few results or even none for some searches eg. "defraggler" results were just Wikipedia and Piriform homepage and nothing else. Had received e-mail from DDG on 20th asking for feedback on new infrastructure with special regard to speed/relevancy so replied that frankly it "sucked" and "improvements" had made DDG almost unuseable. Quick reply from DDG saying they couldn't reproduce my results - they were getting full listings......and so it went on, back and forth, we slowly worked out that DDG results were fine on Pale Moon and the problem was limited to IE regardless of Windows OS. After a few reboots, re-registering all IE dll's and DDG requesting any add-ons in use it was pretty much time to give up and call it a day.......

So here are the last few exchanges:

BL) Quick Look - culprit appears to be Ghostery...... can toggle "defraggler" DDG search results from just 2 results/full list by enabling blocking or not on Ghostery IE toolbar pull down menu and refreshing browser. Since have Ghostery running on Pale Moon I am at a loss to understand this one! Any ideas?

DDG) Is it the latest version of Ghostery? I'm unsure what could be causing this as Ghostery's iPhone app uses DuckDuckGo as the default search-engine.

BL) Yes, as far as I am aware - it is listed on my XP system as Ghostery IE Plugin version 2.5.2.0 installed 06 April 2012. Ghostery IE version has updated on both machines during today - (the slightly wierd/maddening "Please click OK and close IE to update Ghostery, etc" pop-up mid screen usually when starting IE) - Anyhow - it is very definitely Ghostery as can 100% recreate problem by toggling Ghostery "Enable blocking" in IE8 toolbar menu. Time for me to draw stumps here in Scotland for tonight - thanks again for your interest and prompt responses. Will have to sleep on this one!

BL) My mistake! - Ghostery IE Plugin is version 2.4.2.0. Last throw of dice for today was full uninstall of Ghostery from XP machine using Revo Uninstaller advanced option - then installed new copy of Ghostery for IE from link on DDG Privacy/Don't Track recommends. Sadly no change! Thanks again and goodnight.

BL) Found the answer......and you are NOT going to like it!!!!! DuckDuckGo is on the Ghostery IE Plugin list of sites to block. Click Ghostery in IE toolbar, select Options, Ghostery Options box opens, select Blocking tab and scroll about half way down........and there is "DuckDuckGo".......uncheck box and DDG search results back to normal. How did DDG get on the Ghostery list??????????????

DDG) I'm not too sure but we're looking into this. We have a partnership with them so it's not immediately obvious why we're included on the list. In any case, it's not enabled by default but we'll take a look!

BL) Would like to be a fly on the wall for that phone call - some relationship! Agree Ghostery "Blocking" list not enabled by default but I bet nearly everyone just goes for "Select All" option - after all it's a "bad boys" list so I for one have never bothered to go down it item by item before? Give'em hell............!!!! W*****s!!!!

DDG) Agreed, it's a very long list (and they don't put it in alphabetical order) and I'm sure the same issue has happened to others.

After all that I think it's time I looked at some of the Ghostery alternatives you have kindly suggested above!

stravinsky

Re: Alternatives to Ghostery

Unread post by stravinsky » 2012-06-22, 06:22

i use adblock plus with anti-tracking lists like " fanboy's tracking" and "easy privacy" added. you can try that too and give your report :)
i added them but did not care to check if these lists work as advertised.

megaman

Re: Alternatives to Ghostery

Unread post by megaman » 2012-06-22, 06:48

stravinsky wrote:i use adblock plus with anti-tracking lists like " fanboy's tracking" and "easy privacy" added. you can try that too and give your report :)
i added them but did not care to check if these lists work as advertised.
Ghostery will still tell you about things that are being blocked, so ABP is not doing its entire part.
Nowadays, I just use Ghostery and ignore ABP, since ABP is resource hogging my desktop and laptop overtime, it is weird.

What is weirder is that it is not as bad when I use the Development/Experimental version, also it is "No Restart Necessary."

Blacklab
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Re: Alternatives to Ghostery

Unread post by Blacklab » 2012-06-22, 13:10

Interesting discussion and links on this Adblock Plus forum topic Is Ghostery Redundant @: https://adblockplus.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9246. One of the links mentioned http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/node/6730 takes you to a Sep 2011Stanford Law School article - a pretty comprehensive look at what's available and about half way down they even attempt to measure the effectiveness of 12 different web privacy tools.

lyceus

Re: Alternatives to Ghostery

Unread post by lyceus » 2012-06-24, 04:45

jaycelou wrote:
lobocursor wrote:...Now that is private owned it seems to "forget" to block some stuff. ;)
This is a business world, nothing is forgotten, only question is what to allow and what to block. Until one day, DNT+ become another Ghostery, than a new DNT++ (maybe :D ) will be there to replace it, and the cycle repeats.
I know that for sure that nothing is free in the world. Is just that in my case all those snoop is for nothing, in my country few people have credit cards, so they even can sell me the4 sun for one dollar. I won't buy that for the lack of credit card. :D

lyceus

Re: Alternatives to Ghostery

Unread post by lyceus » 2012-06-24, 04:48

Blacklab wrote:Not sure this is strictly on topic as Ghostery IE Plugin turned out to be the culprit, but it may amuse you all.......

After all that I think it's time I looked at some of the Ghostery alternatives you have kindly suggested above!
Hehe cool! Well so why I asked to the kind Pale Moon community for real solutions instead to venture to Google (the bigger tracker in the world). :mrgreen:

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Re: Alternatives to Ghostery

Unread post by Moonchild » 2012-06-24, 09:24

I know that for sure that nothing is free in the world.
Apart from, at least, Pale Moon.
"Sometimes, the best way to get what you want is to be a good person." -- Louis Rossmann
"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past; wisdom is of the future." -- Native American proverb
"Linux makes everything difficult." -- Lyceus Anubite

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