EFF invites users to test online tracking blocker

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is on a mission: give users a tool that will help them disallow/block trackers contained within the Web pages they visit.

They have been working on a new add-on that allows users to block spying ads and invisible trackers that feed information to them, and the result is called Privacy Badger.

“When you visit websites, your copy of Privacy Badger keeps note of the ‘third-party’ domains that embed images, scripts and advertising in the pages you visit,” they explained how the add-on works in a blog post.

“If a third-party server appears to be tracking you without permission, by using uniquely identifying cookies to collect a record of the pages you visit across multiple sites, Privacy Badger will automatically disallow content from that third-party tracker. In some cases a third-party domain provides some important aspect of a page’s functionality, such as embedded maps, images, or fonts. In those cases, Privacy Badger will allow connections to the third party but will screen out its tracking cookies.”

The add-on is currently available in alpha for Firefox and Chrome users, and the foundation is asking “intrepid users” to test it and report bugs before the general public is invited to use it.

“In the near future we hope to release Privacy Badger for Opera and Firefox Mobile. Unfortunately at the moment we cannot support Safari or Internet Explorer, since current versions of those browsers appear to be incompatible with how Privacy Badger works at a technical level,” they added.

To download the add-on and for more information about what it does and does not do, and how and why it does what it does, go here.