
In 2014, Edward Snowden suggested consumers use Ghostery along with other tools to protect their online privacy. Ghostery is among the most popular browser extensions for privacy protection. Originally developed by David Cancel, Ghostery was acquired by Evidon (renamed Ghostery, Inc.) in January 2010. When configured, Ghostery also displays the list of trackers present on the page in a temporary purple overlay box. Ghostery reports all tracking packages detected, and whether Ghostery has blocked them or not, in a "findings window" accessible from clicking on the Ghostery Icon in the browser. When a tracker is blocked, any cookie that the tracker has placed is not accessible to anyone but the user and thus cannot be read when called upon. Creating "Whitelists" of websites where third-party script blocking is disabled and other advanced functionality for users to configure and personalize their experience.Continuously curating a "script library" that identifies when new tracking scripts are encountered on the Internet and automatically blocks them.These scripts, also known as "tags" or "trackers", are the underlying technology that places tracking cookies on consumers' browsers. Blocking third-party tracking scripts that are used by websites to collect data on user behavior for advertising, marketing, site optimization, and security purposes.Ghostery blocks HTTP requests and redirects according to their source address in several ways: Ghostery enables its users to detect and control JavaScript "tags" and "trackers" to remove JavaScript bugs and beacons that are embedded in many web pages which allow for the collection of a user's browsing habits via HTTP cookies, as well as participating in more sophisticated forms of tracking such as canvas fingerprinting.Īs of 2017, Ghostery is available for Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Safari, iOS, Android, and Firefox for Android.Īdditionally, Ghostery's privacy team creates profiles of page elements and companies for educational purposes.
Ghostery browser code#
The code was originally developed by David Cancel and associates. Since February 2017, it has been owned by the German company Cliqz International GmbH (formerly owned by Evidon, Inc., which was previously called Ghostery, Inc.
Ghostery browser free#
Ghostery is a free and open-source privacy and security-related browser extension and mobile browser application.
