Online privacy is clearly a concern for many Internet users. That's why many people take measures to keep their online activity secure, from setting passwords to browsing incognito.
However, some advertisers and third-parties track your Internet activity without you even realizing it. That's why the Electronic Frontier Foundation has created a new plug-in designed to keep clandestine online tracking at bay.
The EFF released the new browser extension, called Privacy Badger 1.0 Thursday. The plug-in blocks advertisers and other third-parties from following your activity on the Web. This includes preventing certain types of super-cookies and browser fingerprinting from following users across multiple websites.
If Privacy Badger detects that an advertiser has been tracking you from site to site without your permission, it will automatically be barred from loading any more content from that source in your browser so that it can no longer track you.
"To the advertiser, it's like you suddenly disappeared," according to the Privacy Badger website. The extension also comes with adjustable color-coded sliders that signal to users if there's a third-party domain and if it is allowed to load content in your Web browser or not.
Privacy Badger works with the EFF's Do Not Track policy announced earlier this week. This new standard for Web browsing aims to protect users from having their online activity tracked by encouraging them to enable their Do Not Track setting in their browsers or download the Privacy Badger plug-in. It also asks advertisers and data collection companies to respect users' decision to not be tracked.
Privacy Badger is available now and is free to download for Chrome or Firefox.
Photo: Sebastien Wiertz | Flickr
