https://privacybadger.org/ Recent content on Privacy Badger Hugo -- gohugo.io https://privacybadger.org/faqs/how-is-privacy-badger-different-from-disconnect-adblock-plus-ghostery-and-other-blocking-extensions/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/how-is-privacy-badger-different-from-disconnect-adblock-plus-ghostery-and-other-blocking-extensions/ Privacy Badger was born out of our desire to be able to recommend a single extension that would: Automatically analyze and block any tracker or ad that violated the principle of user consent Function well without any settings, knowledge, or configuration by the user Use algorithmic methods to decide what is and isn’t tracking Be produced by an organization that is unambiguously working for its users rather than for profit As a result, Privacy Badger differs from traditional ad-blocking extensions in two key ways. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/who-makes-privacy-badger/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/who-makes-privacy-badger/ Privacy Badger was created by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit organization that protects your privacy and free expression online. We make free tools like Privacy Badger, publish educational guides, testify before lawmakers about technology, and fight for the public interest in court—all thanks to support from EFF’s members. If you want a better internet and a strong democracy, join the fight against creepy online surveillance. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/how-does-privacy-badger-work/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/how-does-privacy-badger-work/ When you view a webpage, that page will often be made up of content from many different sources. For example, a news webpage might load the actual article from the news company, ads from an ad company, and the comments section from a different company that’s been contracted out to provide that service. Privacy Badger keeps track of all of this. If the same source seems to be tracking across different websites, then Privacy Badger springs into action, telling the browser not to load any more content from that source. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/what-is-a-third-party-tracker/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/what-is-a-third-party-tracker/ When you visit a webpage parts of the page may come from domains and servers other than the one you asked to visit. This is an essential feature of hypertext. On the modern Web, embedded images and code often use cookies and other methods to track your browsing habits — often to display advertisements. The domains that do this are called “third party trackers”, and you can read more about how they work here. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/how-does-privacy-badger-handle-social-media-widgets/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/how-does-privacy-badger-handle-social-media-widgets/ Social media widgets (such as the Facebook Like button) often track your reading habits. Even if you don’t click them, the social media companies often see exactly which pages you’re seeing the widget on. When blocking social buttons and other potentially useful (video, audio, comments) widgets, Privacy Badger can replace them with click-to-activate placeholders. You will not be tracked by these replacements unless you explicitly choose to click them. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/what-is-global-privacy-control/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/what-is-global-privacy-control/ Global Privacy Control (GPC) is a new specification that allows users to tell companies they’d like to opt out of having their data shared or sold. By default, Privacy Badger sends the GPC signal to every company you interact with alongside the Do Not Track (DNT) signal. What’s the difference? Do Not Track is meant to tell companies that you don’t want to be tracked in any way (learn more about what we mean by “tracking” here). https://privacybadger.org/faqs/does-privacy-badger-prevent-fingerprinting/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/does-privacy-badger-prevent-fingerprinting/ Browser fingerprinting is an extremely subtle and problematic method of tracking, which we documented with the Cover Your Tracks project. Privacy Badger can detect canvas-based fingerprinting, and will block third party domains that use it. Detection of other forms of fingerprinting and protections against first-party fingerprinting are ongoing projects. Of course, once a domain is blocked by Privacy Badger, it will no longer be able to fingerprint you. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/why-does-privacy-badger-block-ads/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/why-does-privacy-badger-block-ads/ Actually, nothing in the Privacy Badger code is specifically written to block ads. Rather, it focuses on disallowing any visible or invisible “third party” scripts or images that appear to be tracking you even though you specifically denied consent by sending Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control signals. It just so happens that most (but not all) of these third party trackers are advertisements. When you see an ad, the ad sees you, and can track you. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/why-doesnt-privacy-badger-block-all-ads/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/why-doesnt-privacy-badger-block-all-ads/ Because Privacy Badger is primarily a privacy tool, not an ad blocker. Our aim is not to block ads, but to prevent non-consensual invasions of people’s privacy because we believe they are inherently objectionable. We also want to create incentives for advertising companies to do the right thing. Of course, if you really dislike ads, you can also install a traditional ad blocker. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/what-about-tracking-by-the-sites-i-actively-visit-like-nytimes.com-or-facebook.com/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/what-about-tracking-by-the-sites-i-actively-visit-like-nytimes.com-or-facebook.com/ At present, Privacy Badger primarily protects you against tracking by third party sites. As far as privacy protections for “first party” sites (sites that you visit directly), Privacy Badger removes outgoing link click tracking on Facebook and Google. We plan on adding more first party privacy protections in the future. We are doing things in this order because the most scandalous, intrusive and objectionable form of online tracking is that conducted by companies you’ve often never heard of and have no relationship with. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/does-privacy-badger-contain-a-list-of-blocked-sites/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/does-privacy-badger-contain-a-list-of-blocked-sites/ Unlike other blocking tools, we have not made decisions about which sites to block, but rather about which behavior is objectionable. Domains will only be blocked if Privacy Badger observes the domain collecting unique identifiers after it was sent Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control signals. Privacy Badger does contain a “yellowlist” of some sites that are known to provide essential third party resources; those sites show up as yellow and have their cookies blocked rather than being blocked entirely. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/how-was-the-cookie-blocking-yellowlist-created/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/how-was-the-cookie-blocking-yellowlist-created/ The initial list of domains that should be cookie blocked rather than blocked entirely was derived from a research project on classifying third party domains as trackers and non-trackers. We will make occasional adjustments to it as necessary. If you find domains that are under- or over-blocked, please file a bug on GitHub. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/does-privacy-badger-consider-every-cookie-to-be-a-tracking-cookie/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/does-privacy-badger-consider-every-cookie-to-be-a-tracking-cookie/ No. Privacy Badger analyzes the cookies from each site; unique cookies that contain tracking IDs are disallowed, while “low entropy” cookies that perform other functions are allowed. For instance a cookie like LANG=fr that encodes the user’s language preference, or a cookie that preserves a very small amount of information about ads the user has been shown, would be allowed provided that individual or small groups of users’ reading habits could not be collected with them. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/will-you-be-supporting-any-other-browsers-besides-chrome-firefox-opera/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/will-you-be-supporting-any-other-browsers-besides-chrome-firefox-opera/ We are working towards Safari on macOS support. Safari on iOS seems to lack certain extension capabilities required by Privacy Badger to function properly. Chrome on Android does not support extensions. To use Privacy Badger on Android, install Firefox for Android. Privacy Badger does not work with Microsoft Edge Legacy. Please switch to the new Microsoft Edge browser. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/can-i-download-privacy-badger-directly-from-eff.org/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/can-i-download-privacy-badger-directly-from-eff.org/ If you use Google Chrome, you have to install extensions from Chrome Web Store. To install Privacy Badger in Chrome, visit Privacy Badger’s Chrome Web Store listing and click the “Add to Chrome” button there. Otherwise, you can use the following links to get the latest version of Privacy Badger directly from eff.org: Firefox: https://www.eff.org/files/privacy-badger-latest.xpi Chromium: https://www.eff.org/files/privacy_badger-chrome.crx https://privacybadger.org/faqs/i-found-a-bug-what-do-i-do-now/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/i-found-a-bug-what-do-i-do-now/ If a website isn’t working like it should, you can disable Privacy Badger just for that site, leaving Privacy Badger enabled and protecting you everywhere else. To do so, navigate to the site with the problem, click on Privacy Badger’s icon in your browser toolbar, and click the “Disable for this site” button in Privacy Badger’s popup. You can also let us know about broken sites using the “Report broken site” button. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/-i-am-an-online-advertising-tracking-company.--how-do-i-stop-privacy-badger-from-blocking-me/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/-i-am-an-online-advertising-tracking-company.--how-do-i-stop-privacy-badger-from-blocking-me/ One way is to stop tracking users who have turned on Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signals (i.e., stop collecting cookies, supercookies or fingerprints from them). Privacy Badger will stop learning to block that domain. The next version of Privacy Badger to ship with an updated pre-trained list will no longer include that domain in the list. Most Privacy Badger users will then update to that list. You can also unblock yourself by promising to meaningfully respect the Do Not Track signal. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/how-can-i-support-privacy-badger/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/how-can-i-support-privacy-badger/ Thanks for asking! Individual donations make up about half of EFF’s support, which gives us the freedom to work on user-focused projects. If you want to support the development of Privacy Badger and other projects like it, you can throw us a few dollars here. Thank you. If you want to help directly with the project, we appreciate that as well. Please see Privacy Badger’s CONTRIBUTING document for ways to get started. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/where-can-i-find-general-information-about-privacy-badger-that-i-can-use-for-a-piece-im-writing/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/where-can-i-find-general-information-about-privacy-badger-that-i-can-use-for-a-piece-im-writing/ Glad you asked! Check out this downloadable press kit that we’ve put together. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/admin-deployment-and-configuration/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/admin-deployment-and-configuration/ Please see our enterprise deployment and configuration document. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/what-is-the-privacy-badger-license--where-is-the-privacy-badger-source-code/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/what-is-the-privacy-badger-license--where-is-the-privacy-badger-source-code/ Privacy Badger’s source code is licensed under GPLv3+. This website’s source code is licensed under AGPLv3+. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/what-do-the-red-yellow-and-green-sliders-in-the-privacy-badger-menu-mean/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/what-do-the-red-yellow-and-green-sliders-in-the-privacy-badger-menu-mean/ Red means that content from this third party domain has been completely disallowed. Yellow means that the third party domain appears to be trying to track you, but it is on Privacy Badger’s cookie-blocking “yellowlist” of third party domains that, when analyzed, seemed to be necessary for Web functionality. In that case, Privacy Badger will load content from the domain but will try to screen out third party cookies and referrers from it. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/how-do-i-uninstall-remove-privacy-badger/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/how-do-i-uninstall-remove-privacy-badger/ Firefox: See the Disable or remove Add-ons Mozilla help page. Chrome: See the Install and manage extensions Chrome Web Store help page. Edge: See the Add or remove browser add-ons, extensions, and toolbars Microsoft help page. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/is-privacy-badger-compatible-with-other-extensions-including-other-adblockers/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/is-privacy-badger-compatible-with-other-extensions-including-other-adblockers/ Privacy Badger should be compatible with other extensions. While there is likely to be overlap between the various manually-edited advertising/tracker lists and Privacy Badger, unlike adblockers, Privacy Badger automatically learns to block trackers based on their behavior. This means that Privacy Badger may learn to block trackers your adblocker doesn’t know about. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/is-privacy-badger-compatible-with-firefoxs-built-in-content-blocking/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/is-privacy-badger-compatible-with-firefoxs-built-in-content-blocking/ It’s fine to use Firefox’s built-in content blocking (Enhanced Tracking Protection or ETP) and Privacy Badger together. While there is overlap between Firefox’s tracker lists and Privacy Badger, Privacy Badger automatically learns to block trackers based on their behavior. This means that Privacy Badger’s automatically-generated and regularly updated blocklist contains trackers not found in Firefox’s human-generated lists. Additionally, Firefox does not fully block “tracking content” in regular (non-“private”) windows by default. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/why-does-my-browser-connect-to-fastly.com-ip-addresses-on-startup-after-installing-privacy-badger/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/why-does-my-browser-connect-to-fastly.com-ip-addresses-on-startup-after-installing-privacy-badger/ EFF uses Fastly to host EFF’s Web resources: Fastly is EFF’s CDN. Privacy Badger pings the CDN for the following resources to ensure that the information in them is fresh even if there hasn’t been a new Privacy Badger release in a while: https://www.eff.org/files/pbconfig.json EFF does not set cookies or retain IP addresses for these queries. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/is-privacy-badger-spying-on-me/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/is-privacy-badger-spying-on-me/ When you install Privacy Badger, your browser warns that Privacy Badger can “access your data for all websites” (in Firefox), or “read and change all your data on the websites you visit” (in Chrome). You are right to be alarmed. You should only install extensions made by organizations you trust. Privacy Badger requires these permissions to do its job of automatically detecting and blocking trackers on all websites you visit. We are not ironically (or unironically) spying on you. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/is-privacy-badger-breaking-youtube/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/is-privacy-badger-breaking-youtube/ Is YouTube not working? Try disabling Privacy Badger on YouTube. If that resolves the issue, see if re-enabling Privacy Badger breaks YouTube again. If YouTube goes back to not working, please tell us so we can look into what’s going on. Are you surprised that ads aren’t being blocked on YouTube? Privacy Badger is primarily a privacy tool, not an ad blocker. When you visit YouTube directly, Privacy Badger does not block ads on YouTube because YouTube does not use “third party” trackers. https://privacybadger.org/faqs/what-is-privacy-badger/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://privacybadger.org/faqs/what-is-privacy-badger/ Privacy Badger is a browser extension that stops advertisers and other third-party trackers from secretly tracking where you go and what pages you look at on the web. 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.