NoScript vs RequestPolicy vs Ghostery

Is there a lot of overlap between these three add-ons? If you were going to use two of the three, which two would you use?

 

NS and Ghostery.
using NS and RP together is like playing 'whack-a-mole' with two HIPS Allow-Deny buttons.

however i think NS by itself is enough.
and yes, there's quite a bit of overlap with all 3 apps.

 

NoScript and RequestPolicy complement each other in meaningful ways. I would not touch Ghostery as it is an industry-backed contraption that gives a mere illusion of control while commercially exploiting user data.

 

RequestPolicy protects against some stuff that Noscript doesn't. Noscript protects against a broader spectrum of nastiness though. They do complement each other, but if you use both you'll have to do a lot of fiddling with preferences to arrive at anything convenient. If you had to choose one or the other, I would definitely go with Noscript; especially if you're on Windows and are worried about picking up malware.

Ghostery I know absolutely nothing about.

 

your concern about Ghostery is valid, i think.

i haven't read any evidences of any wrongdoing with the Ghostery team though.
but it something to be aware of.

 

I use RequestPolicy and AdBlockPlus

Code:

*$script,third-party,domain=~domain1.com|~domain2.com

filter for blocking unwanted third party scripting.

 

I use NoScript and Ghostery on my system and always recommend Ghostery (and AddBlock plus) to friends and family.
I'm not really surprised been quite cynical if your statement on Ghostery is correct and have no reason to doubt it, albeit dismayed
Could you link to where you got this info.

Thanx
Popcorn

 

Sure! Search for Evidon and Ghostery on this forum and you'll find a lot of information.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/ho...ncompass---solution-connect-cookie-compliance

http://www.businesswire.com/news/ho...ches-Global-Tracker-Report-Powered-Ghostery’s

 

Hi,

well there goes Ghostery
too good too be true, at least I can get the same(better) functionality from NoScript, I liked the fact that if I allowed a site temp permissions Ghostery stepped in and continued blocking the undesirables. Oh well.

Thanx Pinga
Popcorn

EDIT - I figure with 3rd party cookies disabled and AddBlock plus I'm pretty much covering my back when I do give sites temp permissions from NoScript, as far as cookies/bugs are concerned.

 

I use all 3 & the only issue i had was when MS messed around with Hotmail & turned it into LiveCrap etc recently. I found i needed to unblock 1 Ad etc tracker & then it's worked ok since.

Ghostery "appears" to "help" to ensure companies are compliant with users wishes, NOT to be tracked etc ! Anyway as 99% of the time i block Everything possible on All www's, they get much data from me

 

The three overlap very much. I would use RequestPolicy and NoScript if I were to choose two. But I would use only NoScript.

 

Ghostery is known for lots of problems, NoScript is valid anyway, the last i dont know.

i dont know your bank but i trust mine so my only prevention is a deactivated java - in normal httpS sites are not filtered.

 

Two sites with some interesting info on tracking:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/06/ghostery.html
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/node/6730

 

I'm calling you out, for spreading FUD.
(fear.uncertainty.doubt.)

I have repeatedly downloaded the Ghostery xpi file (then renamed, unzipped...) and scrutinized its code.
From my notes, my last check was July 20, 2012.
It is clean. It "does exactly what it sez on the tin".


BTW, the devs have refrained from publishing (to a webpage) a list of "who-all does Ghostery block"...
...but you can grab the current list by pasting this URI (swap out the x's) into your addressbar:
hxxps://www.ghostery.com/update/all?format=json

 

Have been using RequestPolicy for about a week now on my XP machine. I like it, but it seems to really slow down my browsing. Will probably go back to Ghostery.

 

Hi. My English is not very well to completely understand what URLs about Ghostery suggest. Can someone please explain in simple words what is wrong with useing Ghostery? I use it in 2 browsers and up untill today thought that it's doing its job well. How can Ghostery track you?

BTW: it's approved in Firefox add-on section.

 

I cant seem to find the HTTPS everywhere extension for firefox.
Has it been discontinued?

 

Hi pinga,

Adam from Ghostery here. It's kind of weird to have people say this - while Ghostery is owned by Evidon and is ultimately for-profit, the last thing we would do is exploit our users or their data. The only data we collect is data that Ghostery users choose to send us, and even then it's only data on trackers, not user stats. Yeah, we sell the tracker data to various organizations. It's how we support the product. But we don't think making tracking on the web more transparent is such a bad business model... it's our jobs to do it. The two press releases you mentioned before are for products that we sell to provide privacy, security and transparency for businesses to pass on to users.

That said, Ghostery doesn't require any sort of data donation to use the extension. It's the most sophisticated transparency/privacy extension out there and we keep it free for a reason. We also don't obfuscate the code in any way, you can crack it open and see what's going on for yourself.

We simply hope that, if you appreciate the product and trust us, you'll enable Ghostrank so we can see the trackers your Ghostery sees while it travels the tubes of the internets.

Thanks for reading the long read!

 

Thank you for the post, Ghostery, didn't seem long to me at all, the more information the better. In that spirit let me ask you to comment on this:

"If you take a look inside, you'll quickly notice that Ghostery relies on the same "blocking" attempts as Adblock (plus) does.
Looking at the implemented filters (which get updates via the Ghostery website), anyone can see they don't fight cookies either. What they do is block the most "well known" scripts out there with rules that can easily translated to Adblock (plus) if you invest some time. But it is what it is: a "don't load that resource" addon. Nothing more, nothing less.
The privacy impact of Ghostery is something completely different though, as it's made to transmit hit-stats back to Ghostery (unless you explicitly opt-out of this). Fun thing is: even if you've opted out, some of that "aggregate data" is transferred as soon as the addon updates it's rules.
I think this is presents a privacy impact which is comparable to the impact the resources blocked by the addon would have." - Mike August 19, 2012
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/06/ghostery.html

I used Ghostery happily for maybe half a year until I read that. Now that you are here, I'd like to know if Ghostery sends back 'aggregate data' when it updates it's rules. One other thing I'm curious about is how the collected data is used. You say you sell it. Would it be possible for tracking companies to avoid being blocked by Ghostery or AdBlockPlus by examining that data? Why else would they be buying your data?

 

The Holy Trinity:
Noscript + Request Policy + Ad-block Plus
Only issues I've had is pop-ups inside of flash movies & games.

 

There's quite a bit of overlap with NoScript, but at the same time blocks enough things that NS doesn't to make it beneficial to me. It especially speeds up the load times of one site in particular that I frequent, and is worth it for that alone to me.

Ghostery, I flat out do not trust. And between ABP & CS Lite, it's almost entirely overlap anyway. Quite awhile back I heard that it was supposed to become open source, yet it never seems to happen. They post what is supposedly the source code, but how would you really know that it is?

 

Enough said.

 

Amen

 

Well maybe they sell anonymous statistics. You don't have to worry about it then. Does it matter if your stats mixed up with tonns of others and not marked as yours is sold somewhere?

 

It matters very much indeed. It is the very reason for using Firefox and supporting Mozilla:

http://www.mozilla.org/about/mission.html