Privacy Badger Is Changing to Protect You Better

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/10/privacy-badger-changing-protect-you-better

by plopilop • 6 years ago

157 97 6 years ago

nhance• 6 years ago

What is the recommended cocktail of extensions to use these days for optimal privacy? I have so much to think about that I haven't had a chance to dig in and learn what's best.

Havoc3• 6 years ago

Best is relative.

Privacy badger and ublock origin seems to break almost nothing.

Adding umatrix blocks additional stuff but breaks sites. And worth running a pihole too. It seems to catch a lot even with adblockers enabled

pletnes• 6 years ago

Pihole is great for stopping stuff that’s not in the browser in particular. OS telemetry, in-app ads, phishing sites, etc. In pronciple I suppose it can block cryptoviruses, but it’s probably hard to keep a good blocklist up to date.

macd• 6 years ago

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but ublock breaks almost nothing because it just allows trackers on pages where blocking it would break something.

So if blocking a doubleclick tracker will stop a video from playing on some page/site, an exception will get added to the block list to just allow it on that page/site.

It makes it 'just work', but imo it's not clear enough in the UI that this is happening and I would guess that most users don't even know.

Shared4043• 6 years ago

Umatrix is deprecated now. I currently use NoScript and it sort of fills the same role.

pjhol• 6 years ago

I don't know whether this is the best set of extensions, but I'm personally using a mix of

- uBlock Origin

- Facebook Container

- Decentraleyes, ClearURLs

- HTTPS Everywhere

- Privacy Badger.

- Redirect AMP to HTML

- Terms of Service; Didn’t Read

- Smart Referer

- User-Agent Switcher

Next to that I'm using Bitwarden and Floccus (Nextcloud Bookmarks) for self-hosted decentralised password and bookmarks sync.

MeinBlutIstBlau3• 6 years ago

I use adblock plus (imo interchangeable with ublock origin), noScript, facebook container, and HTTPS everywhere.

No script is a pain to begin with, but you come to find out that google and facebook are everywhere constantly watching. It's incredibly unsettling.

ffpip4• 6 years ago

Adblock Plus itself has trackers in it. They also accept money to whitelist every major ad company and trackers meaning you gain nothing privacy wise and just waste CPU resources.

uBlock Origin is many times better (and faster)

decasteve• 6 years ago

NoScript is inconvenient, but essential. All of the other extensions are airbags whereas NoScript is the seatbelt.

stanski• 6 years ago

I went through the pain period of noscript but still couldn't stick with it. I had to be constantly mindful every time I buy something online. The process would half-fail at some stage and then I have to start hunting for which domain is the one that's essential for the checkout to complete.

This is not NoScript's fault of course. Some websites are including 20-30 different domains (check out maperformance.com for example) and picking and choosing to get something to work is a nightmare.

vorpalhex2• 6 years ago

adblock and ublock are absolutely not interchangeable.

Here is the source code for ublock: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock which is GNU GPL v3.0

Adblock is run by Wladimir Palant's Eyeo GmbH. It used to be an open source project but was rewritten to what it is now and is tied to "acceptable advertising" policies and is run by a for-profit company. As always, if you aren't paying for it, you should be asking who is.

qqii2• 6 years ago

Every custom extension and configuration you change makes your browser unique in its own way. See https://amiunique.org/

At the most extreme using Tor Browser and its defaults maximises privacy for any general loginless browsing.

If you're logging into services with accounts then a mix Firefox containers, uBlockOrigin, ClearUrls and Smart Referer provides pretty decent privacy.

fsflover2• 6 years ago

See https://amiunique.org/

See also: https://panopticlick.eff.org

contravariant• 6 years ago

Cookie autodelete is also worthwhile to prevent cookies from lingering unnecessarily.

The Resist fingerprinting and Third party isolation settings is also worth a try, it doesn't stop everything but it does prevent some of it. For usability I usually install the corresponding add-ons so I can toggle them with a button (these settings tends to break stuff).

LocalCDN may also help a bit by using local copies of commonly used resources.

I used to have an add-on that could spoof the font detection by making small random changes to font sizes, but it stopped working and I haven't found a replacement.

heresie-dabord3• 6 years ago

I would like Privacy Badger to keep aggregating information from users who volunteer to do so.

I use the following extensions for browsing "security" (ha!):

Disable WebRTC

Canvas Blocker

Firefox Multi-Account Containers

LocalCDN

Privacy Badger

uBlock Origin

maple3142• 6 years ago

But disabling WebRTC and Canvas makes you easier to be fingerprinted? Most people doesn't block that, so those feature not being available on a modern browser makes you "special" right?

ffpip4• 6 years ago

uBlock Origin should always be your first line of defense. Always.

Theodores• 6 years ago

Privacy Badger and Catblock might not be the best combo but it is furry mammal themed. I haven't had the urge to upgrade from it. However, sometimes I feel guilty for partaking in content that I have ad blocked as the creators lose out.

Then I think about how it is that adverts might zonk out my brain, thereby rendering me unable to write helpful pleasant comments that are hopefully well received by the content creators. So being an advert blocking person isn't all that bad if you contribute with engaged comments.

whycombagator3• 6 years ago

I have:

Privacy badger

Ublock

Cookie autodelete

HTTPS everywhere

Decentraleyes

DuckDuckGo (extension) (it auto sets DDG as the browser search engine, but you can disable that)

Multi account containers - 1 for every frequently visited site. There’s an extension called temporary containers that’s interesting too

I don’t but should use noscript

Canvas blocker would freeze my browser so I don’t use it.

NextDNS is installed on every device and the router.

For mobile (ios) I use safari with Firefox focus set as the content blocker.

AstralStorm5• 6 years ago

Decentraleyes is not actively developed, use LocalCDN which is a maintained fork of it.

crossroadsguy3• 6 years ago

I hope it's uBlock "Origin" and not just "uBlock".

"uBlock Origin" is the original and real deal. The other one is a scam.

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock (mentioned multiple times in these threads)

Discussion about the two: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14335190

cameronperot• 6 years ago

PrivacyTools usually has an up to date list [1] of good extensions to use. It might also be worth going through their about:config tweaks section [2].

[1] https://privacytools.io/browsers/#addons

[2] https://privacytools.io/browsers/#about_config

maltalex3• 6 years ago

Is HTTPS Everywhere actually useful at this point? The sites I visit use https by default.

Last time I saw plain old http was quite a while ago.

maltalex3• 6 years ago

I try to keep the number of browser extensions to a minimum since they have access to every piece of sensitive information in the browser.

So my setup is:

- uBlock Origin [0]

- Cookie AutoDelete [1]

- Firefox's "Enhanced Tracking Protection" set to "Strict" [2]

- DuckDuckGo as the default search provider

[0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/ublock-origin...

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/cookie-autode...

[2] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-prote...

AstralStorm5• 6 years ago

Additional useful pieces are Skip Redirects and Smart Referer. And enabling First Party protection in about:config, plus perhaps Facebook Container.

Against anti-adblock, Nano Defender is the thing. (There's an uBlock Origin mode in that.)

ubercow13• 6 years ago

What about setting privacy.firstparty.isolate? I've had it on for years and almost nothing breaks.

mkskm2• 6 years ago

It's also possible to configure Firefox to natively clear cookies on exit, minus an exception list if preferable.

- Firefox > Preferences > Privacy & Security > Delete cookies and site data when Firefox is closed

- Firefox > Preferences > Privacy & Security > Delete cookies and site data when Firefox is closed > Manage Exceptions

crossroadsguy3• 6 years ago

What is the best way to use DDG like Google with minimum friction and good search results (I rarely get relevant answers if I do a pure DDG search)?

Also, what is DDG? It has its own crawlers (DuckDuckBot) like Google and Bing have (assuming Bing has, haven't read on it)? Or DDG (or DuckDuckBot) just filters/parses results from Google et al?

npteljes• 6 years ago

I'm reliving my teenage rebellion with the following set of extensions (on Firefox):

- uBlock Origin, most lists enabled, 3rd party iframes blocked

- Privacy Settings

- Multi-Account Containers, Temporary Containers

- Decentraleyes

markosaric• 6 years ago

It's crazy what we need to do these days just to surf the web!

I do this:

VPN on at all times

Firefox as the main browser

Firefox enhanced tracking protection set to Strict

Firefox containers enabled to isolate specific sites when I do want to log into them (Google...)

Everything set to be deleted (cookies, cache etc) when I close Firefox

Allowed cookies for a handful of sites I want to keep being logged into

DuckDuckGo as the main search

uBlock Origin on with default blocklists. I really love the "element picker" feature which allows me to remove annoying elements

aidenn02• 6 years ago

Does anyone have a good example of a site plastered with ads that still renders with privacy badger? I want a go-to screenshot to link to for my rants any time a website tells me to disable my "ad blocker"

zwarag• 6 years ago

There are several digital newspapers that you can view with and without ad blocking.

Here are some Austrian examples https://kurier.at/ https://www.diepresse.com/

aidenn02• 6 years ago

I think you are misunderstanding my question. I want a site that is plastered in ads with PB enabled.

smartbit• 6 years ago

kurier.at shows an advertisement for lust-auf-osterreich.at after disabling all cookies.

MeinBlutIstBlau3• 6 years ago

Didn't I just read somewhere on slashdot or hacker news that privacy badger logs all of your websites you visit and websites that you enable/disable certain cookies or javascript?

qqii2• 6 years ago

This is quite unfortunate news but not surprising. This effectively turns Privacy Badger for the majority of users into another block list.

Fingerprinting vs ad tracking protection has been an ongoing war. The natural escalation to tracking protection is to fingerprint even harder. I'd expect most power users who like to configure their extensions and blocking lists to be suprised how much information thst provides to differentiate them. Even without that browsers by default share a lot of information with every website (https://panopticlick.eff.org/).

I don't see a good ending to this war. Solutions like Firefox containers requires you to be extremely thoughtful in your site usage and don't protect from more advanced fingerprinting techniques (that for example cloudflare employs). The web is fundimentally a little broken here.

heresie-dabord3• 6 years ago

Given the pervasive commercial surveillance system, a user needs to have several protective layers just to browse the WWW:

a browser with security extensions (although a good browser should be built with security as a design principle, not as an "add-on")

ESNI and DoH (even though Cloudflare can see the aggregate)

DNS caching and blocking in the subnet

iptables/nftables blocking of undesirable IP address ranges by the router

edit: It's safer to leave the dysfunctional WWW alone and use only RSS.

Pet_Ant• 6 years ago

It's safer to leave the dysfunctional WWW alone and use only RSS.

Is their any evidence that Google killed Google Reader because it interfered with their Ad/user-tracking metrics business?

tremon• 6 years ago

Disagree on DoH though, because it defeats DNS caching and blocking in the subnet. Plus, many people trust their own provider more than yet another US corporation.

jamesgeck0• 6 years ago

The "community learning" feature they mention investigating at the bottom of the article sounds like the best of both worlds: automatic learning without fingerprinting and a pre-trained block list.

dpkonofa• 6 years ago

This would even be effective, in my opinion, if they just merged your fingerprint with other, random users.

Tarq0n• 6 years ago

Is this fingerprinting javascript-based, and therefore can be circumvented by whitelisting scripts, or are there server-side methods as well?

totalZero2• 6 years ago

I'm not a security expert so I may be wrong (if so, someone please educate me). My impression is that if you own several websites and trackers, you can identify users by the specific combination of blocked and non-blocked trackers, plus data about their machine/OS, ISP, screen resolution, and browser languages, as well as checking to see if browser permissions are turned on for notifications, location, and the like. I'm not sure you can prevent that with a javascript-based approach alone.

Animats• 6 years ago

This is quite unfortunate news but not surprising. This effectively turns Privacy Badger for the majority of users into another block list.

Yes. Privacy Badger was not just an anti-tracker. It's also something of an ad blocker. Since ad sites tend to track, it learns to block them.

Checking "cnn.com" right now, Privacy Badger is blocking 36 sites. These include "static.ads-twitter.com", "c.amazon-adsystem.com", "www.googletagmanager.com", "ad.doubleclick.net", and "amplify.outbrain.com". Blocking those knocks out most of the ads from the big players. Two of those are Google's, and they probably don't like being blocked by a large number of users.

Taking that away to prevent a theoretical approach to tracking seems like a sell-out by EFF.

crossroadsguy3• 6 years ago

Firefox Containers ought to just let do such things:

1. Open every new website (the one which doesn't have a saved container for it) in a new random/untagged container - destroy that container and data/everything when I close the last tab of that site

2. Unless I tag/name that container for that website and then persist it the way you do - and give me one click operation to tag name and (maybe select an icon/colour for that container)

3. What about giving website favicon as an option to the container icon

4. Get rid of those "Oh you are opening this website B (container_B) from a website A (container_A) - do you want us to open it in container_B instead"? "Always"? Yes! Yes! Make it default or give me an easy options to make it default damn it - give me an option the first time where I can mark "always do this"!

5. Do we really need special container for Firefox and then for the rest? Why not ship with a default already set container in the Multi Container add-on that's Fb container?

There's an option "Select a container for each new tab" but it's not very helpful as it lets you just choose either one among all the existing containers, or "No container" and that is blocking pop-up.

totalZero2• 6 years ago

Why is this unfortunate? It's a change to a default setting. You can still turn it back on, I think.

Ideally you're using a multi-layered approach, meaning that much of the ugly stuff should be filtered out upstream of your browser extensions anyway.

sdfin• 6 years ago

Can DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials be an alternative to Privacy Badger? Once I replaced Privace Badger by it, because Privacy Badger had conflicts with some sites I read often. But I'm not sure if its's an optimal alternative.

ffpip4• 6 years ago

DDG privacy essentials is domain based blocking.

I recommend uBlock Origin. Remove everything else.

solinent3• 6 years ago

Why not both Privacy Badger and uBlock origin?

electriclove• 6 years ago

They get a lot of flack here but kudos to Google for informing Privacy Badger about this.

ocdtrekkie• 6 years ago

Google's original report on Safari's ITP was part of a major FUD campaign about privacy measures. Google went so far as to suggest because fingerprinting was possible, we should just allow third party cookies. Arguably, carrying this forward in limiting the effectiveness of Privacy Badger to block tracking domains is a further extension of that behavior.

Google has finally been pushed to accept that third party cookies are going away, but are now advocating for a "privacy budget" system that essentially gives them a certain amount of allowance to violate your privacy. They are still FUD-ing about the drastically more correct solution: To just protect your privacy outright.

sthnblllII• 6 years ago

because fingerprinting was possible, we should just allow third party cookies

Nothing is either/or. Increasing the cost and difficulty of tracking does increase privacy. At the same time, there is some truth to the argument that Google is not losing the arms race between its trackers and the blockers anytime soon. Fundamentally, as long as web pages have this much control over your computer, they will be able to track you. The web is broken and needs to be paired down and reworked so that privacy is part of the protocol.

dandare• 6 years ago

Question: if I use uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger at the same time, who blocks what?

uallo• 6 years ago

In Firefox, you can see that in the developer tool's Network panel.

Privacy Badger Is Changing to Protect You Better

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