July 2010
3 posts
Ghostery for Chrome v2.0
The Ghostery team is pleased to announce a v2.0 of Ghostery for Chrome - which includes script blocking functionality and whitelisting! Download the new version now, click on options, and click the “Enable Bug Blocking” checkbox under Blocking Options. Under the Blocking Options tab you can also establish your site whitelist, allowing scripts to execute on those domains even if...
7 tags
Duck Duck Go
Howdy Ghosterians,
One of the really valuable things about our Ghostery community is when users contact us via email or our support forums to give us the heads-up on scripts they think should be added to our database. Our users have helped us find invisible scripts of all kinds, including behavioral data trackers, other ad tags, research and analytics pixels, and page widgets.
...
Ghostery for Firefox v2.2.1
Hello Ghosterians,
We’re excited to announce the release of Ghostery for Firefox v2.2.1. Get it here!
Some improvements of note:
added ability to whitelist local files per this suggestion
Ghostery now recognizes frame-in-frame scripts
added support for Firefox 4 betas
added support for SeaMonkey 2.0 and 2.1
Also, the list of web bugs, trackers, widgets, and other scripts...
June 2010
2 posts
GhostRank and Better Advertising
Here at Ghostery, we’re excited about all the great things happening with our parent company, Better Advertising. The Better Advertising platform is getting some attention, so we thought we’d distill things down for our users and explain how Ghostery fits in the big Better Advertising picture.
Better Advertising has been working with leading industry associations who have created,...
White listing comes to Ghostery v.2.2
Ghostery V.2.2 for Firefox is now ready for download and comes fully loaded with bug fixes, and exciting new features to improve your user experience.
Bug Fixes
- iGoogle page breaks with blocking on has been resolved.
- Scripts interfering with Facebook operation while Facebook Connect is blocked have been resolved. This extends to blocking of ‘Like’ button data sharing across Websites.
...
May 2010
2 posts
Ghostery News Roundup
It’s been a great Spring here in Ghosteryland, and we’ve had nifty new things sprouting up all over the place. Here’s a quick run-down of interesting Ghostery tidbits, including an update on a couple of weeds we found and sorted out.
Ghostery for Firefox v2.1.1 took care of the ugly authentication bug in our 2.1 release, and v2.1.2 includes a few more optimizations.
We tweaked...
Ghostery v2.1 bug & fix
As many members of our Ghostery community have reported on our forums and via email over the last 24hours, there’s a glitch in the latest Ghostery release for Firefox, which when encountered prevents authentication to sites like web mail logins, online banking, and (perhaps the worst on a Friday night) Netflix.
The glitch is actually occurring during the upgrade process from v2.0.3 to v2.1,...
April 2010
3 posts
Ghostery Comes To Chrome and IE.
The Ghostery team has been hard at work on bringing you more control over your privacy across more browsers, and we’re thrilled to announce the launch of Ghostery extensions for both Google Chrome and Internet Explorer. Both Chrome and IE have differing personalities from Firefox, and Ghostery’s capabilities with each browser will vary as a result.
While Google Chrome’s API does not...
5 tags
Live! Ghostery V.2.1 for Firefox
The evolution of Ghostery under Better Advertising’s ownership over the last few months has been fast paced. The Ghostery team’s goal has been to bolster your capacity for bug free web browsing, which brings us to V.2.1 of Ghostery.
New in V.2.1:
Refreshing your browser to implement option updates is no longer necessary - Ghostery now recognizes updates automatically.
The Ghostery...
It Takes A Village
Technology is a constantly evolving landscape. Staying ahead of the privacy curve means using tools like Ghostery to monitor who’s tracking your behavior online, as well as knowing for what purposes so that you can make informed browsing choices. One of the most rewarding aspects for the Ghostery team is the community’s active involvement towards reaching this goal by opting-in to...
March 2010
2 posts
Privacy, Precisely.
French poet René Daumal is quoted as saying:
It is still not enough for language to have clarity and content… it must also have a goal and an imperative. Otherwise from language we descend to chatter, from chatter to babble and from babble to confusion.
It’s a wise thought - and far be it from us to suggest that we can add to M. Daumal’s wisdom, but here at Ghostery...
Ghostery V2.1 Beta Test Invitation
Our development team began work on the next Ghostery release as soon as v2.03 was out of the gate. We have packed in some significant, new features and are now ready to widen the circle of test users.
Included in our beta version of v2.1:
Detection of web bugs embedded in iFrame page elements and IMG tags
Note: Deletion of iFrame and IMG tags is available exclusively as an opt-in...
February 2010
1 post
1 tag
Release of version 2.0.3 and Ghostery's new home
We’re excited to release Ghostery version 2.0.3. Notes on what’s in this release, including a fix for the bug that was preventing Firefox from exiting gracefully, are below. We also want to share some details about our new home as part of Better Advertising, in case you missed the announcement a few weeks ago.
All your Ghostery data is safe, exactly the same as it was before.
Better...
January 2010
1 post
To the Ghostery Community,
Since starting Ghostery last year my goal has been to provide my fellow consumers with a free service built on the principles of transparency and consumer control. I am proud of the overwhelming response to Ghostery; over the past year, over 2 million people have installed Ghostery and joined our community.
Over the past months, as my focus switched to my new company,...
December 2009
1 post
Ghostery 2.0.2 Released
Quick update: I uploaded version 2.0.2 to the Firefox site today. It’s currently in the sandbox awaiting review by the Mozilla editors.
If you would like to download it now, go here and select Version 2.0.2.
Here’s what’s new in v2.0.2:
Added support for Firefox 3.6
Added strikethroughs to make it more intuitive as to what’s being blocked. (See image on the...
September 2009
1 post
Is 37 Signals Selling Behavioral Targeting Data?
I was surfing around the 37 Signals site today when I noticed something odd. It looks like 37 Signals is selling access to its audience behavioral data to Media6°.
According to Media6°website they do the following:
Our patent pending algorithms and methods connect a brand’s existing customers with user segments composed entirely of consumers who are interwoven via the social graph. These...
August 2009
2 posts
I love our Ghostery Fans
I ♥ our Ghostery fans!
We’ve had a few fans create some cool Ghostery stuff, and I love all of it, but this week @pok3 took it to the next level.
He created some awesome skins to make Ghostery for Firefox prettier.
Checkout this cool status icon:
Before
After
and this awesome restyling of our alert bubble:
Before
After
Thanks @pok3!
Ghostery 2.0.1 Released
Quick update: I uploaded version 2.0.1 to the Firefox site last week. It’s currently in the sandbox awaiting review by the Mozilla editors before it’s released.
If you’d like to upgrade now you can download it here.
Here’s what’s new in v2.0.1:
Count of blocked trackers is now displayed in the status bar if blocking is enabled.
Options screen is now split...
July 2009
4 posts
Announcing: Ghostery for Firefox v2.0 featuring...
I’m pleased to announce the release of Ghostery for Firefox v2.0!
You can get the latest version here, or if you already have Ghostery installed, simply wait for Firefox to automatically notify you of the update.
NEW: Ghostery TrackerBlock - Block advertising, widgets, and other trackers
You’ve all been asking for the ability to block trackers for a long time. I am very happy to...
Top 10 Web Analytics Trackers on the Web
This is number three in a series of posts this week on the Top Web Bug Trackers we saw at Ghostery during June.
Noteable:
Full blown domination: Google Analytics, Google’s data collection machine, accounts for 80% of the distribution among the Top 10.
Three sleepers on the list: StatCounter, Woopra and Crazy Egg.
Quantcast is 4x larger than it’s larger, better funded...
Top 10 Widgets on the Web
This is the second in a series of posts coming this week on the Top Web Bug Trackers we saw at Ghostery last month.
Noteable:
It’s all about Sharing. 4 of the top 10 widgets (AddThis, DiggThis, ShareThis and AddToAny) are focused on letting users rate or recommend content.
Wow, AddThis is twice as large as its next 3 competitors combined.
Portable Social Networks: Facebook and...
Top 10 Web Bug Trackers on the Web
This is the first in a series of posts coming this week on the Top Web Bug Trackers we saw at Ghostery last month.
What surprised me:
Google’s utter domination of the Top 10 list (Google Analytics, Google Adsense, Doubleclick and Google Custom Search).
Google Analytics coverage is massive and growing quickly. I instinctively knew this but its breadth and velocity even surprised...
June 2009
2 posts
Ghostery v1.5 is here; announcing the Ghostery...
I just uploaded Ghostery v1.5 to the Mozilla Add-ons site. The Mozilla editors still need to review it in order to approve it, I hope that will happen soon.
You can download the latest version from here, current Ghostery users can just wait for Firefox to automatically notify you of the update.
What’s new in v1.5:
We’ve added a new notification system. Now you’ll be able to...
Google Is Top Tracker of Surfers →
For the last several months I (Ghostery) have been collaborating with a group of graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley on a new privacy study.
The study focused on the prevelance of web bug trackers, something we know quite a bit about. To help the researchers we provided them with GhostRank data on the top 100 websites. The big takeaway was that Google Analytics was found...
May 2009
7 posts
“Here’s the difference with our methodology: We track spending, not revenues....”
– Are we NUTS? « Borrell Associates
Rafer sez: This firm says $12B is spent on email advertising each year, not the IAB’s estimate of $500M. The ‘NEt requires bottoms-up analysis. Top-down is for broadcast and print.
Ghostery: over a million installs!
This weekend Ghostery crossed an important milestone, one I never even thought was possible when this started, our 1 millionth installation.
Thanks to every Ghostery user out there for spreading the word and growing this virally!
I’m so excited about the next version of Ghostery which I’ll be pushing live this week, it includes so many of the features that you’ve been asking...
Now in German and Spanish! Version 1.4.0
Version 1.4.0 of Ghostery is here.
Changes in this version include:
New definitions for: CoreMetrics, Magnify360, Fathom SEO, Eloqua, PercentMobile, NetMonitor, Marketo, Demandbase, Fetchback, Lyris ClickTracks, Enquisite, eXTReme Tracker, Microsoft Analytics, Sweepery, Tell-a-Friend, Trafic (Romanian Service), SilverPop EngageB2B, Nuconomy, Bluelithium and Glam Media.
Spanish...
“Over the past year, there’s been a growing debate around how add-on developers...”
– Contributing to a healthy ecosystem « Mozilla Add-ons Blog
Rafer sez: Neither @dcancel nor I believe that contributions will help Mozilla build an extension ecosystem. To be sustainable, either individually or collectively, extensions must provide economic or entertainment benefit that people...
Opt Out of Behavioral Advertising
Ran across this tool today on the Network Advertising Initiative site. The Opt-out tool let’s you see if Behavioral Ad Networks have an active cookie on you and let’s you opt-out of the network.
Important caveat:
“Opting out of a network does not mean you will no longer receive online advertising. It does mean that the network from which you opted out will no longer...
“Finally, NoScript is still blocking Ghostery through a Ghostery-specific CSS...”
– yardley.ca » greg yardley’s random notes
Attention all NoScript users
Tonight I learned from Mark Pilgrim that the NoScript Firefox extension is arbitrarily blocking Ghostery’s notification window. This is the window that notifies you about which web bugs were found on the current page. NoScript is doing this without their user’s consent and without the option to turn off this behavior.
This is the second time this week that NoScript has come under...
April 2009
1 post
March 2009
4 posts
“If the distribution is low/no value add, existing only by opacity or regulation,...”
– Image by Denis Collette via Flickr
Umair Haque on Threadless, via my Tumblr
Rafer sez: Watch this space for bright, and hopefully blinding, lights.
Over 300,000 served.
Today Ghostery crossed an exciting threshold. As of this morning Ghostery has been downloaded over 200,000 times from the Firefox Add-ons site.
In addition to the Firefox Add-ons site Ghostery has been downloaded directly from our website and from a few other 3rd party sites over 150,000 times.
Over 350k downloads total. Wow! Thanks to all you Ghostery users for trying us out. Lots more...
Good week for Ghostery
It’s been a great week for Ghostery downloads on the Firefox site. So far we’ve had over 61k downloads this week. Thanks to everyone for giving us a try. Version 1.4.0 should be out by next week with a lot of big changes. Keep the feedback coming! David
Big performance improvement! Version 1.3.9
Small changes in this release but big performance improvements in the way we match our web bug definitions. Also lots of new definitions were added.
Big performance improvement on sites with many web bugs.
Changed width of preference window from 400 to 450 pixels.
Added or refined definitions for:
BlogRollr
Casale Media
BlogCounter
WidgetBucks
Nooked
JS-Kit
Bzzster
LeadLander
...
February 2009
3 posts
Now with BugCount! Version 1.3.7 Released
Added new BugCount preference to show Bug counts in statusbar. Thanks to Neal Richter for the suggestion.
Fixed preferences, including bug that incorrectly set BugRank to true by default should have been false (sorry!).
Added default preferences and new preference observer to monitor changes to preferences so that you don’t need to restart your browser for changes to take effect.
Lots of...
1 tag
Version 1.3.6 Released
Earlier today I released version 1.3.6 of Ghostery.
Changes in this version include:
New or updated definitions for LivePerson, Kampyle, ClickTale, Lotame, Quantcast, CPX Interactive, Lynchpin Analytics, Trovus Revelations, Omniture TouchClarity, InsightExpress, MyBlogLog, GetSatisfaction, BlueKai, Adify and Kanoodle.
Enabled Preferences button in Add-ons window.
New link to a new feedback...
1 tag
Ghostery recommended by Mozilla!
Cool! Ghostery is a Firefox recommended add-on!
Thanks Jay for passing this along.
January 2009
4 posts
Sneak Peek of Version 1.33
I’m hoping to release Version 1.33 of Ghostery later today. Some big changes in this release!
Here’s a video showing some of the new features:
Here is the full-sized version of the video.
List of changes:
The alert bubble, that lists the webbugs on the current page, now automatically disappears after 15 seconds.
The alert bubble, if hidden, can be brought back by...
Suggest a webbug
Are there webbugs that Ghostery isn’t finding that you’d like added? If so you can use our new Suggest a webbug form to let us know.
David
Changes for Version 1.3.2
Version 1.3.2 was released on Thursday, Jan. 8th. Here are the changes:
Major performance improvement. We now search just the javascript src text instead of the entire HTML page. This speeds up performance when significantly.
The number of found items is now displayed in the statusbar tooltip.
Revised or added the following definitions:
* PollDaddy * SezWho * Zookoda * Diigo * Trackur *...
December 2008
1 post
Changes for Version 1.3.1
Version 1.3.1 will be out later today. Below are the changes in that release.
Changed logo in about dialog to match current version.
Added or revised definitions for the following:
* Kontera ContentLink * AdBrite * AdultAdWorld * Gunggo * AdultAdWorld * DoublePimp * OpenAds * SexInYourCity * Clicksor * HubSpot WebsiteGrader * Quigo AdSonar * Feedjit * BlogCatalog * AddThis * Technorati...