Everyone should be using Privacy Badger.
this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
90 points (98.9% liked)
Linux and Tech News
1008 readers
7 users here now
This is where all the News about Linux and Linux adjacent things goes. We'll use some of the articles here for the show! You can watch or listen at:
You can also get involved at our forum here on Lemmy:
Or just get the most recent episode of the show here:
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
all 30 comments
sorted by:
hot
top
controversial
new
old
No one should be using Privacy Badger.
@amanneedsamaid @leo why? is it something made by them? If so, yeah, understandable
Obsolete imo, there are many other extensions that do the exact same thing. Its not that I dont trust Privacy Badger, I just don't see the point in trusting it when it offers nothing new.
why are you trusting the other extensions over privacy badger? Trust wise privacy badger coming out of eff is high on my list.
uBlock has as far as I know all the same features (and many more), a better reputation (anecdotally), and is a single, extremely common browser extension (if you care about being fingerprinted through having multiple extensions, that is an advantage).
I don't really care if the EFF endores the tool, as it doesnt have any unique features.
ah see that makes sense. I only use no script and privacy badger as sorta a backup for when I allow pages. and I guess to long didn't read if you include that in this kind of thing. I don't use much beyond no script for similar reason you don't see the need to use privacy badger.
NoScript is great for blocking Javascript on websites, it even comes pre-installed on Tor Browser. Highly recommend either NoScript or GNU LibreJS (which blocks all Javascript it deems "non-trivial" or unfree) for Javascript blocking.
For your use case, I would just uninstall Privacy Badger and use uBlock. You sound like you don't value your convenience super highly (because you use noscript :)), so I would take a look at the advanced user settings in uBlock. It will show every domain attempting to be loaded on a website, and you can pick and choose which you want to allow / block globally or allow / block per-site. You can also block large media elements, remote fonts, among some other things I can't remember off top.
yeah but for me privacy badger is on because it comes from the eff who I trust highly. I don't know enough about ublock to care to put it on. If I was not doing privacy badger I would replace it with nothing.
Well both projects are open source, so your reasoning for trusting privacy badger more doesn't really make any sense.
The code is auditable, and uBlock is the most popular and developed open source ad-blocker. What organizations happen to support / recommend them does not matter.
Well it does not make sense to someone who does not think philosophy matters. I have nothing against ublock and of course its methodology is a preference but eff is an organization whos philosophy I agree with.
@HubertManne @leo @amanneedsamaid OK then, but saying that, rather than just saying don't use privacy badger would have made a lot of difference. I use UBlock origin, privacy pass for hcaptcha stuff, privacy badger, jshelter from time to time, plus I also use a vpn when I have to, because honestly I don't really like using them, their apps feel clunky, etc. So yeah, it's absolutely fine to have different solutions to the same problem installed, that incourages healthy competition
About having multiple solutions installed to same problem being "absolutely fine", yeah no. (albeit 5 year old tweet, but I would assume it holds true).
Also, adblock extensions are not an industry, and given the fact they're open sourced, there is no real benefit to "encouraging competition" for such a simple tool.
I'm with them... why?
Turns out they didn't have a reason, they just don't understand how the tools work
It is obsolete, just use uBlock Origin instead.
But they serve different purposes? I use privacy badger for auto denial of cookies. Origin doesn't do that.
Brave and Firefox both do that. I dont know about Chromium based browsers in this regard, but Firefox's total cookie protection already isolates cookies per-site.
Both browsers' adblockers will block domains ID'd as trackers, so there are no cookies to delete from any domain I would want to.
The more I think about it, why do you need that feature? Firefox and uBlock block tracking domains (and therefore cookies), and uBlock can be configured to block any domain you want.
So if your use case is: "I need any site I visit that is not in a tracker list to have all of its cookies denied, but I don't want to block cookies through my browser or block the entire domain."
Then Privacy Badger does have one feature uBlock does not, and its that one. However, because its not recommendable to use two ad blockers at the same time (i.e. Privacy Badger + uBlock) (see my other comment), Privacy Badger is still obsolete.
If you need that edge case functionality, download Cookie AutoDelete
I'm talking about auto denial of consent, not blocking of tracking cookies after consent. And I didn't say "block all cookies", you're reaching.
Also they simply aren't the same thing, there is overlap in functionality. You can read more about that from one of the devs here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31680164
You'll also find a dozen others successfully using both of them in tandem in that thread. Taking a negative attitude towards using multiple plugins because it's "not recommended" doesn't change their distinct uses. If you prefer an easy life and would rather have one plugin because you just prefer one plugin, that's your choice.
My multi browser plugin + PiHole + USG setup has been working wonderfully for years, so I'll take the evidence in front of my eyes over the recommendation of someone who doesn't even understand the disjoint features of the plugins.
I don't see anything in that thread about consent banners, only that privacy badger tries to identify trackers not on its blocklist, a feature I don't want. I also don't understand why blocking consent to receive cookies is at all useful when you can simply block the cookie after consent.
On the off chance you're talking about blocking cookie consent banners (i.e. the popups on websites that ask your consent to send certain cookies), uBlock does that.
I'm sure your PiHole and USG almost fully cover any downsides to your below average choice in browser extension.
something works well โ whole thing good
uBlock does not do that for a cohort of websites for which I have tested it.
You're acting like I haven't tested this setup when I've told you that I have. Again, the evidence in front of your own eyes is a good place to start so try some testing yourself to understand where the limits of each reside.
Turn on "Easylist Cookies" in uBlock. Also, I feel like a broken record, but why wouldn't you just use an extension like this?
Also, if uBlock's list is missing a cookie banner, it takes two clicks to remove it permanently with the element zapper.
There is no evidence in front my eyes?
You're taking unnecessary issue with a working setup. I've demonstrated why your concerns don't bear fruit. There is nothing left to discuss here.
Lmao working โ perfect, and unnecessary โ invalid. You haven't demonstrated anything besides linking to a Hacker News post that didn't talk about the feature you said it did.
There is nothing left to discuss here.
Okay kid, you keep on that road to perfection.
Okay kid, you keep on looking for a valid reason to use Privacy Badger. ๐