Disconnect: open source extension makes the web more private, secure, faster

[znowi]

I like Ghostery better. It breaks less websites for me and provides more data on each particular tracker with a source link and a description for the company behind it. Disconnect just shows a title with a number.

It has a nicer and more functional UI. I like a popup on page load where you can instantly see what is blocked and what isn't. There's an option to "run once" a blocked widget on page, which can be handy.

[zizee]

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/516156/a-popular-ad-blo...

From the article:

A Popular Ad Blocker Also Helps the Ad Industry

Millions of people use the tool Ghostery to block online tracking technology—some may not realize that it feeds data to the ad industry.

It's good to have alternatives, and I prefer Disconnect as Ghostery's motivations seem a little clouded.

[teamonkey]

Can someone explain what this is? The front page tells me nothing and I can't watch the video right now.

I wish this trend of using videos instead of text would end soon.

[walshie4]

There are two plugins they currently offer. One blocks sites from tracking you, while the other allows you to search using your favorite search engine with added security (no ip logging, more anonymity, etc.).

For more information checkout the Github project page for each project below.

https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect

https://github.com/disconnectme/search

[byoogle]

The source is at: https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect

[jzelinskie]

I recently tried to switch from Ghostery to Disconnect. It was basically a wash in terms of frequency of broken pages. However two things did bother me a little:

- The default settings had Disconnect fighting with HTTPS Everywhere and caused resource contention in Chrome. Please follow the Unix philosophy and just recommend users install HTTPS Everywhere instead of having a naive implementation embedded in your unrelated product.

- It was unintuitive that the number incremented on the button is the total number of requests and not the number of requests blocked.

I look forward to the days that these types of extensions work well enough that I can install them on my parents computers and not have to worry about pages being broken, but them still having their privacy. Keep up the good work.

[thomasfromcdnjs]

As these become more popular we shall see a return to server analytics. Time to install AwStats...

[joosters]

I wish more people used server analytics. Less privacy risk to the user, along with a faster and less congested internet connection...

[rajbala]

I often find that Disconnect can be overly aggressive in the parts of a page that it blocks. When something is amiss when using a webpage whitelisting the site in Disconnect usually fixes the problem.

[nacs]

This also happens with Ghostery and to a lesser extent, Adblock. I switched from Ghostery to Disconnect and have found Disconnect to be a little better at not breaking some sites.

The worst sites I've ran into while using Ghostery/Disconnect are the ones that have a Google Analytics action tracking code in the middle of their Javascript methods (since the addons block GA) so the entire site/app fails to work.

Developers need to start testing their sites with these addons more to make sure silly errors like that aren't done (some optional tracking request failing to complete shouldn't make an entire app fail).

[urza]

I am using StartPage https://startpage.com/ as my search engine and am very happy with it.

They essentially redirect your search query to google and return you the result. But they don't collect your IP nor anything else. https://startpage.com/eng/protect-privacy.html

[antihero]

Neat, and idea id there is there something like this that retains Google's handy features and also doesn't look like something from the nineties?

[Loic]

My browser is always started in incognito mode, I open Firefox to do something in an authenticated way (posting something on HN, accessing my bank account, etc.) but normally, Firefox is always closed.

     $ cat /usr/share/applications/chromium-browser-incognito.desktop
     [Desktop Entry]
     Version=1.0
     Name=Chromium Incognito Web Browser
     GenericName=Incognito Web Browser
     Comment=Access the Internet
     Exec=/usr/bin/chromium-browser --incognito %U
     Terminal=false
     X-MultipleArgs=false
     Type=Application
     Icon=chromium-browser
     Categories=Network;WebBrowser;
     MimeType=text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml_xml;x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https;
     StartupWMClass=Chromium-browser
     StartupNotify=true
     X-Ayatana-Desktop-Shortcuts=NewWindow;Incognito;TempProfile
     
     [NewWindow Shortcut Group]
     Name=Open a New Window
     Exec=/usr/bin/chromium-browser --incognito
     TargetEnvironment=Unity
     
     [Incognito Shortcut Group]
     Name=Open a New Window in incognito mode
     Exec=/usr/bin/chromium-browser --incognito
     TargetEnvironment=Unity
     
     [TempProfile Shortcut Group]
     Name=Open a New Window with a temporary profile
     Exec=/usr/bin/chromium-browser --temp-profile
     TargetEnvironment=Unity

I think this idea is coming from Ian Bicking[0], but I can't find the reference any more and it has been years I am doing this.

[0]: http://www.ianbicking.org/blog/

[abc3]

Has anyone seen a guide that discusses which browser settings and plugins complement one another? Or which ones to use in different scenarios, e.g., I know what I'm doing, I don't mind if things break on occasion, and I'm willing to spend a lot of time training my plugins (so NoScript and/or RequestPolicy would be recommended) vs. I'm setting up a computer for my parents who aren't tech savvy (so maybe Disconnect or Ghostery, plus....?).

This comes up a fair amount on Hacker News and in http://www.reddit.com/r/Privacy and I've seen plenty of posts and guides like https://prism-break.org/en/ and http://www.logicalincrements.com/firefox/ that just list a bunch of plugins. What I'm looking for is a set of use cases.

[aareet]

How is this different from Ghostery? (https://www.ghostery.com/)

[joshschreuder]

I use Ghostery, but I believe it has been chided in the past for its 'GhostRank' feature (which, to their credit, isn't on by default).

This is anonymous usage tracking of the trackers encountered which is sold to businesses to "help them market to consumers more transparently, better manage their web properties and comply with privacy standards."

I would like to see more of a comparison of 'effectiveness' of both extensions though, if such a thing were possible.

[ams6110]

You can achive a lot of this without using any browser extensions by simply using a hosts file such as the one at http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm (that one is Windows-oriented but it works fine in linux also).

Or you could run your own dns but that's a bit more complicated to set up.

[allendoerfer]

I like the clean approach, but hesitate to use my hosts file for blocking unwanted stuff on my development machine.

It is 3:00 am the app breaks in production while the development version magically works. You question your ability as a developer and a human being in general while blaming your browser, your os, your DNS secretly knowing in the back of your head, that that you must have done something really, really stupid. Why could you not have waited until tomorrow to push?

Finally the mixed feeling of relief and thinking you are the dumbest person in the world, when you remember your hosts file while hacking over SSH on production files, which you totally should have considered instantaneously.

I remember reading a story, where the legal department of a company in Germany sent hundreds of cease-and-desist orders to websites, which where all displaying their images. Strangely the image just appeared on company computers …

[vxNsr]

Have you noticed how this affects websites/apps breaking? meaning, certain websites won't play video unless an add plays first (hulu/comedy central sometimes) do those sites not work if you enable this?

[euank]

Though it's not advertised on the landing page, Lightbeam has a block functionality: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/lightbeam/

It's also endorsed by mozilla, which makes me trust it more. I've been using it for a while (on top of noscript) and it's quite informative and seems to work well.

My personal setup is noscript with careful whitelisting which I've found to effectively disable most tracking.

[sheetjs]

> It's also endorsed by mozilla, which makes me trust it more.

Somewhat skeptical, given that Mozilla referred to in-browser ads as "user-enhancing":

https://twitter.com/dherman76/status/433320156496789504

https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publish...

[quadrangle]

People shouldn't use something with "block functionality". To protect our freedoms, we need everyone using stuff that defaults to blocking the surveillance.

[jkh123]

Using disconnect's proxy? Looks like a trap to me. Give me proof, you discard all the data, then we are talking. Otherwise this approach is mostly flawed.

[lotharbot]

I'd love to see an Android version of this.

[byoogle]

Dev here. We do have a new Android app out (but focused on search rather than browsing privacy): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.disconnect....

[userbinator]

From https://disconnect.me/disconnect :

Common tracking sites – Facebook, Google, and Twitter – are shown separately to make them easy to block or unblock. Click any icon to block or unblock a site.

...

Click the Facebook or Twitter icons to share these stats with your friends.

Anyone else find that rather ironic?

[Mindless2112]

Not really. The point isn't that those sites are evil, it's that tracking is evil.

[gregimba]

This is just going to be another arms race.

[kiba]

It's only an arm race if a lot of people uses it and it becomes a problem to business owners.

[pessimizer]

I love the combination of Ghostery and Cookie Monster.

For Ghostery, I make sure that new trackers added to the list are automatically blocked, and disable its cookie blocking. With Cookie Monster, I block all cookies by default, only whitelisting the sites that I wish to maintain being logged into (primarily the sites I run.)

With Cookie Monster you get the two-click ability to temporarily allow cookies from a particular website, and the two-click ability to revoke all sites previously allowed temporarily. Being able to quickly manage the individual cookies set for a particular site (again two clicks) is also great.

Ghostery, Cookie Monster, Tree-Style Tabs and Download Statusbar are the four things that I install on a browser the first time I use it. I add HTTPS Everywhere, User Agent Switcher and Video DownloadHelper if I'm going to use it for more than a few hours.

That's the combination of plugins that renders me unable to switch from Firefox:)

edit: I don't know how I forgot the Resurrect Pages plugin.

edit2: Crap, I forgot Flashblock. I might be hopelessly embedded in a Firefox workflow.

[donniezazen]

It's the dots that you leave around the internet that is the biggest problem in personal privacy.

[JosephBrown]

I've been using Abine's DoNotTrackMe for a while. Is this any different/better?

[touristtam]

I am wondering as well. Using https://github.com/RequestPolicy/requestpolicy on Firefox as a more aggressive way to control which website request can get through.

[venatiodecorus]

This has been available for a while, curious why it's making HN now?

[paracyst]

I have long since switched to Ghostery ever since Disconnect frequently broke YouTube videos and nothing was ever done to fix it. Does anyone know if this problem still persists?

[mountaineer]

hmm, been using Disconnect for a while in FF and Chrome, haven't noticed any issues with YouTube videos.