What privacy blockers/pop up blockers do people recommend?

[peteyt 393]

So I used Eff's Panopticlick today which seemed to say my computer wasn't fully safe from adverts and tracking https://panopticlick.eff.org/

I use chrome with the extensions Adblock Plus for blocking adverts and Blur for blocking trackers. I have seen some people on here talk about stuff such as ublock so I was just wondering what do people use and recommend. I feel privacy is something that is coming more and more important, especially with the risk that our data is not only being taken and often sold without our permission but that this data can often later be stolen e.g. from hackers. Just wondering what people on here use?

[itman 1,659]

6 hours ago, peteyt said:

So I used Eff's Panopticlick today which seemed to say my computer wasn't fully safe from adverts and tracking https://panopticlick.eff.org/

Are you worried about not passing the fingerprinting test; I assume that's the one you failed? Wilderssecurity.com has thread/s on this. It takes a bit of work to pass the fingerprinting test.

[peteyt 393]

3 hours ago, itman said:

Are you worried about not passing the fingerprinting test; I assume that's the one you failed? Wilderssecurity.com has thread/s on this. It takes a bit of work to pass the fingerprinting test.

I suppose the problem is you can block too much. I've had to unblock trackers to allow things to work. The test in the link didn't give me a good score so I wasn't sure if I was better using something else other than adblock plus and blur

[itman 1,659]

10 hours ago, peteyt said:

I suppose the problem is you can block too much. I've had to unblock trackers to allow things to work. The test in the link didn't give me a good score so I wasn't sure if I was better using something else other than adblock plus and blur

If your primary concern is browser privacy, you are best served using a browser that is designed for privacy such as FireFox.  "Out-of-box:" i.e. w/o adding any extensions, it offers a number of privacy protections such as:

Adding the uBlock Origin extension will only strengthen FireFox's native privacy protections. uBO by default uses multiple tracking protection and malware block lists with AdBlock's TPLs being one of them. I have also added Nano Defender to uBO which is an anti anti-adbocker. Web sites are increasingly using anti-adblockers to get around browser adblocking protection. Adding Nano Defender to uBO in FireFox is a "bit tricky" though.

The final FireFox extension I use is Decentraleyes which does:

Quote

Websites have increasingly begun to rely much more on large third-parties for content delivery. Canceling requests for ads or trackers is usually without issue, however blocking actual content, not unexpectedly, breaks pages. The aim of this add-on is to cut out the middleman by providing lightning speed delivery of local (bundled) files to improve online privacy.

• Protects privacy by evading large delivery networks that claim to offer free services.
• Complements regular blockers such as uBlock Origin (recommended), Adblock Plus, et al.
• Works directly out of the box; absolutely no prior configuration required.

Note: Decentraleyes is no silver bullet, but it does prevent a lot of websites from making you send these kinds of requests. Ultimately, you can make Decentraleyes block requests for any missing CDN resources, too.

Finally, note that Chrome is built for security; not privacy. Being a Google based product, I believe that is self-evident.

[peteyt 393]

4 hours ago, itman said:

If your primary concern is browser privacy, you are best served using a browser that is designed for privacy such as FireFox.  "Out-of-box:" i.e. w/o adding any extensions, it offers a number of privacy protections such as:

Adding the uBlock Origin extension will only strengthen FireFox's native privacy protections. uBO by default uses multiple tracking protection and malware block lists with AdBlock's TPLs being one of them. I have also added Nano Defender to uBO which is an anti anti-adbocker. Web sites are increasingly using anti-adblockers to get around browser adblocking protection. Adding Nano Defender to uBO in FireFox is a "bit tricky" though.

The final FireFox extension I use is Decentraleyes which does:

Finally, note that Chrome is built for security; not privacy. Being a Google based product, I believe that is self-evident.

Thanks for the info will look into it. Used to use firefox years ago but started having problems but think it was the PC I had at the time being too old. I've user chrome ever since and I do like how it syncs with android devices. However being Google theres always the concern of what they are collecting.

I do have the new chromium based edge to but haven't really used it. I have also heard good things from Opera which even has a built in VPN

[Agathon 0]

I use Cybersec as part of my NordVPN subscription. It comes as a browser add-on or the desktop plugin

[itman 1,659]

1 hour ago, Agathon said:

I use Cybersec as part of my NordVPN subscription. It comes as a browser add-on or the desktop plugin

Appears this doesn't have anti anti-adblocker capability: https://www.reddit.com/r/nordvpn/comments/8q7ekn/getting_we_see_youre_using_an_ad_blocker_with/ . Which means you're going to get locked out of a lot of web sites.

[Agathon 0]

2 hours ago, itman said:

Appears this doesn't have anti anti-adblocker capability: https://www.reddit.com/r/nordvpn/comments/8q7ekn/getting_we_see_youre_using_an_ad_blocker_with/ . Which means you're going to get locked out of a lot of web sites.

I'm using it right now and I can say, empirically, it works fairly well as an adblocker, but I have never noticed the glaring... anti-adblocker popups on any site - so it might not be as robust if based purely on "full spectrum" ad blocking ability and more about blocking higer risk ads only.

I've installed a free add-on in the past - adblock but stopped almost immediately when I felt the permissions they were asking for seemed suspiciously unnecessary. Not to mention the heap of files and directories left behind by parent company so called betafish. Thought on a mac uninstallation would be nice and neat :-s

 

[itman 1,659]

VPN use by consumers overall is OK. But for businesses, it is a entirely different matter. Good recent article on this is:

Quote

Businesses Need to Understand the Risk of VPN Services

As you can tell from our recent review roundup of virtual private network (VPN) services, these products exist for a lot of reasons, not all of which are relevant to business use. For example, it's unlikely that your IT staff will have a business reason to watch movies that are actively blocked in a specific geographic region like, say, China.

Instead, the typical reasons a business should use a VPN service center almost entirely around security. Protecting the device using the VPN, protecting its data in transit, and protecting the business network to which the VPN is connecting—that's a lot of bases covered. You might also need a VPN to meet compliance requirements for the transmission of health-related information or financial data. Perhaps you want to make sure that your competitors can't see what you're up to. Or what's more common lately, you don't want a foreign government siphoning off your intellectual property (IP).

 

https://www.pcmag.com/news/businesses-need-to-understand-the-risk-of-vpn-services

Edited February 22, 2020 by itman