Installing and configuring Ghostery. Ghostery - plugin for protecting user's confidential information on the Internet Ghostery plugin
Today, the security of personal data of millions of users seems to be one of the main problems of modern browsers. In this regard, the Yandex browser seems to be the best solution, since, despite the absence of any intelligible protection, it provides users with the opportunity to expand existing functionality through, including those related to computer security.
Ghostery for Yandex.Browser
Surely, many have come across a situation where advertising from Google or Yandex somehow recommends suitable goods and services, although the user did not indicate any clarifying information about himself. Such a case is a fairly clear consequence of the work of the so-called bugs, which are located on the vast majority of portals.
Ghostery for Yandex browser is a special application designed to protect users of both PC and mobile platforms from unauthorized use of their personal data. The principle of the extension is extremely simple: it blocks bugs, which leads to a complete cessation of information leakage towards the site owner.
IMPORTANT! As foreign practice shows, personal data of users and trade in them seems to be a fairly successful and rapidly growing business, which is gaining momentum in our country.
This application is indispensable for those who take a responsible approach to the issue of security on the Internet, therefore, it is advisable to analyze its main features and functions.
Application Features
This application is significantly different from its similar counterparts, like. After all, the latter work mainly based on updated filters, while Gosteri blocks all possible threats in advance, giving the user the opportunity to decide which of the widgets and bugs to allow and which to leave blocked.
Among the interesting features of the program, it is worth mentioning:
- Convenient sorting of bugs by purpose and function;
- The ability to add a site to the white list, which will restore its full functionality;
- The ability to disable and enable individual bugs, which allows for a flexible privacy policy.
ADVICE! You should not think that extensions, even the most functional ones, can completely protect users' personal data. To ensure perfect protection, you will need to use a whole range of measures, including vpn and a special browser.
Installing and using the extension
In order to expand the functionality of the browser and block bugs on sites, you will need to go to the Google app store, which presents the official page of the program. Despite the fact that the version presented in the service is intended for Chrome browsers, the Yandex analogue supports its installation, as it was created on its basis.
In order for the download to start, you will need to press the appropriate key, after which the program will ask the user to confirm the action. After that, the download will begin, which can take a long time if the Internet is slow.
After the download is complete, the browser will again ask for permission to install, after which you will have to wait for the installation of the application to complete. Then you need to go to the browser settings, select Add-ons and find the installed Gosteri. It will need to be turned on by pressing the appropriate key.
Now, after loading each page, in the upper corner, next to the extension icon, the number of items stopped will be displayed.
Video to help
In this video, we will look at a browser extension called Ghostery, which allows you to provide the basics of anonymity on the Internet. But in order to more clearly understand what kind of anonymity we are talking about, we will install this extension and, in the course of studying its work, we will consider various systems for tracking user activity.
I will consider the operation of Ghostery in the browser Google Chrome, however this extension also works in Mozilla Firefox and Opera, but is not supported Internet Explorer. Therefore, for Internet Explorer, consider alternative options.
And so, let's get started, to install this extension, go to ( Menu \ Settings \ Extensions \ View gallery \Ghostery\ Install). To the right of the address bar, we have a ghost icon, this icon will display the activity of the program.
Now let's move on to the program settings ( Ghostery\ Settings \ Settings):
Data collection - when the Ghostrank function is enabled, when unknown web bugs or sites appear, this data will be sent to the program server to replenish the database;
Auto update - automatic update information about new bugs;
Blocking - here we specify which bugs to block and which not. In general, the web bug itself is a script that runs on the site when you visit it or perform certain actions, and in the program they are divided into the following categories:
1) Analytics- bugs that are designed to collect statistics. They send information such as the number of visitors, their browser types, country, region, etc.
3) Confidentiality– collecting information based on your interests. To make it easier to understand, imagine the following situation, perhaps it happened to you. We went to the website of the online store to ask how much watches cost on the Internet, so for the sake of interest. As a result, you found out the information you needed and went to the news site. There is a teaser ad on the news site, i.e. advertising with an image and a small description, which has already got everyone. And after a while you notice that you are given an advertisement for watches, go to another site, the same thing. Those. watch ads start following you all over the internet.
In this situation, the web bug transmitted information about the topic that you were interested in, and the service, in conjunction with teaser networks, began to flood you with similar offers in order to sell the product.
4) lighthouses- tracking user activity. This is how many times a particular link was clicked, etc.
You can whitelist a list of sites for which Ghostery will not block bugs, but this is easier to do while the program is running than to manually fill in the necessary sites.
Let's block all the bugs by clicking on the button ( Select All \ Save) and try to go to some site, let's say fimlix.net video hosting site. The pop-up notification displays which bugs the program has found and which ones are blocked. Since we indicated the blocking of all known bugs, the program blocked everything it found.
By clicking on the ghost icon, a window appears with a more detailed description of the blocked web bugs. Here we can disable or enable certain bugs completely or for certain sites, pause the block or add the site to the whitelist.
Actually, that's the whole work of the program. To install this extension for Mozilla Firefox ( Menu \ Add-ons \ Search for add-ons \Ghostery), for Opera ( Opera\ Extensions \ View gallery of extensions \ Search for add-ons \Ghostery\ Add toOpera)
But again, as I said, this program is not supported by Internet Explorer, so we will use a different method in it, this is adding tracking lists (Menu \ Customize add-ons \ Tracking protection \ Get a tracking protection list from the Internet \ Add all lists ). In Internet Explorer, the block is displayed in blue before the refresh icon, as you can see, these lists also do a good job with advertising. The only negative is that detailed information about what is found and what is blocked is not displayed.
Main functions
- detection of beacons, network bugs, spies, pixels that track information about the user's activities on the Internet;
- providing data about each company to which the detected tracking networks belong;
- blocking suspicious scripts, scripts, images, embedded objects;
- the function of sending anonymous information about detected objects to the server in order to replenish their list and create a transparent ecosystem of behavioral advertising.
Advantages and disadvantages
Advantages:
- free;
- the presence of the Russian language;
- flexible blocking settings;
- a voluminous catalog of network bugs, which is regularly updated;
- displaying detailed information about bugs;
- quick activation of often blocked useful bugs.
Flaws:
- the plugin does not give a 100% guarantee of complete privacy protection (as there may be objects that are not familiar to it).
Alternatives
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Free . Free program, which searches for and removes various malware, and also protects the computer from reinfection. Performs a quick system scan and quarantines all found threats. It has a regularly updated database.
AVG privacyfix. Free plugin for Chrome and Mozilla browsers. Allows you to manage your privacy settings while working with websites, search engines, social networks. Reliably protects the user from surveillance.
Work principles
After the successful installation of the plugin, the following window will appear in front of you:
Completing the installation
A blue ghost icon will appear on the toolbar.
From now on, you will be aware of who monitors your data on any resource. In the case when tracking objects are found on the open page, the icon acquires the active status and displays their number:
Browser bar icon
A pop-up notification may also appear. You can view detailed information about all found funds by clicking on their name.
Search results
The application will block the scripts of all suspicious companies.
Blocking companies
Ghostery is a great extension for managing your online privacy and finding information about invisible trackers.
Good day to all and everything else, dear friends, acquaintances, readers, admirers and other personalities.
I have repeatedly said, written and talked about how important for security and just comfortable surfing on the Internet such browser plug-ins as (analogue) and, in particular, NoScript. Not just important, but necessary (like soap near the sink).
Today I would like to share with you one more extension, which simply must be in your arsenal and accompany the journey on the Internet anywhere and everywhere. Frankly speaking, I thought that it had been a standard for many for a long time, but after conducting some analysis and survey (since about February), I found out that not everyone is familiar with this wonderful miracle of programmer thought.
Let's get started.
general information
Let's start with an introduction and description of our extensions by the developers themselves:
In general, this is the place to be and, for example, all sorts of buttons for reposts, likes and everything else (on any sites) are mainly intended not so much for your convenience, but for collecting and analyzing the resources you visit, statistics, interests and any other data, and, subsequently and at best, displaying relevant advertising to you.
First of all, all popular social networks sin with this, and secondly, any statistics systems (that is, as a result, almost all sites without exception, because webmasters put their counters), like Google Analytics, Yandex.Metrika, etc. Advertising scripts, all kinds of widgets, and even seemingly harmless website design elements implemented through JavaScript do the same.
In addition, the fact is that even when you log out somewhere (and this, as a rule, no one does now), cookies and many other interesting things are stored in the cache, with the help of which you can collect various kinds of statistics, providing various kinds of functionality (which is the first goal, think for yourself). So it goes.
So, it deals with protecting your personal data, privacy and, as a result, security, by preventing the download and execution of elements that are recognized as bugs. personal data. I think that this information is enough for you, and you can read the rest on the extension page, but we will move on to installation.
Depending on the browser, there different pages from where you can install this plugin. For Firefox, for Opera, well, for Google Chrome, it lives here. I'll cover installation and usage using the latter as an example.
Installation, configuration and use (on the example of Google Chome)
The principle of operation is in many ways similar to No-Script, but at the same time it is much more humane for the end user and causes less shudder in terms of control and perception.
For Google Chrome, you can, where we double-click on the "Install" button to, oddly enough, install the extension:
After installation, you will brief digression, which will allow you to get acquainted with the description of the plugin, its nuances, settings and more.
In particular, it will be proposed to participate in improving the world and everything else. The choice, of course, is yours, but I think this is a formality:
Well, in fact, on the last tab you will be asked to select the types of data and "bugs" that you want to block. In general, you can select all of them and then disable unnecessary ones, if any, at all (say, a familiar widget on the site disappears somewhere):
Actually, this will complete the installation and you can start using it, which is not particularly difficult.
Among all the extension icons in the upper right corner, you should have a cast icon, by clicking on it .. A small tutorial will appear. Read it, since there is nothing complicated:
For those who have not installed yet, but want to read this tutorial, I will duplicate its text here:
- Report window
In the report window, you can view the list of found bugs and configure their blocking parameters; - Lock options
To enable or disable the blocking of a particular bug, use the buttons to the right of its name; - blocking
If the toggle switch handle is located on the right and is colored red, then the bug lock is on; - Unlock
If the toggle switch knob is located on the left and is colored blue, then the bug lock is off. This setting applies to all bugs by default; - Exceptions
If you enable the checkmark button (it will turn green ), Ghostery will always allow this bug to be loaded on the current site; - Suspend blocking
To suspend blocking all bugs, click on the " Pause lock". To resume the lock, press the same button again; - White list
To allow loading of all bugs on the current site, click on the "Whitelist" button. To remove a site from the white list, click on the same button again; - Ghostery setup
To visit the Settings page, click on the icon and then on the Settings button.
So that you are not afraid of a large number of letters, in fact, I will show you how it looks live:
As you can see, everything is visually clear and simple: colored toggle switches and beautiful buttons, pressing are accompanied by prompts and all that. key " Pause lock" you can generally pause the plugin and see how it will be without it.
By the way, it can block Gravatar , so if you want to see avatars on the site (and not only), then you should probably disable this blocking;) In general, the same applies to the Google AJAX Search API (responsible for searching on this and some other sites where the search is implemented using Google scripts).
Actually, that's all. Let's move on to the afterword.
Afterword
Somehow it is like this, use it to your advantage, with pleasure, well, advise others, after all, confidentiality + security is our everything. Not No-Script, of course, but on the farm (and / or in conjunction with it) it will be very useful, especially for those who do not use it first.
As always, if you have any questions, thoughts, additions, and so on, then welcome to comment on this post.
Stay with us;)
The protection of personal information is an important issue, especially on the Internet. It's no secret that services that everyone is talking about, for example, Google and Yandex search engines, social networks In contact with and Facebook from the first day they collect a dossier on each visitor for effective targeted advertising of goods and services. This is their bread, business, money. Of course, an ordinary web surfer does not need such guardianship at all, and if you do not use specialized software like , then be sure to experiment with extensions for blocking tracking elements of web pages. One of the best solutions is the multi-browser plugin Ghostery, which will be discussed below.
So, Ghostery- This is a free Russified extension for browsers, and Internet Explorer, which protects the user's confidential information when visiting sites. The plugin easily finds and blocks unnecessary scripts ("bugs"), such as Yandex.Direct advertising modules, Google Analytics tools, buttons social networks, chat forms - in total more than 2000 elements from 500 interested services.
After activated Ghostery will instantly identify all the bugs that are watching you, they will be displayed in the purple pop-up window and in the drop-down list of the blue ghost button. See how many "bugs" are found on the main page of the popular Avito free classifieds board (screenshot)! The rest is clear: by moving the sliders, you can block unnecessary elements. If you have any doubts about the choice, then by clicking on any "bug", you will receive complete information both about it and about its developers.
