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Browser Privacy and Ad Blocking Not Bullet-Proof

August 21, 2018

I love adblockers and avoid visiting websites that ask to disable them. Unfortunately, protecting your privacy can be bypassed by at least one software technique. Naked Security reported that "Researchers from the Catholic University in Leuven devised a framework to test the effectiveness of protections offered by the Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Edge, Tor, and Cliqz desktop browsers to a range of potential bypass mechanisms (mobile products weren't tested)." The researchers tested 46 leading adblockers and extensions to see how they held up to the bypass. Shocker, but the effectiveness was all over the map.

The good news is that browsers and adblockers do a pretty good job at blocking tracking attempts, but some requests do sneak through. Even with the possibility of some tracking information getting through, I'll keep the extensions installed and maximize browser privacy settings. My favorite Chrome extension is Adblock.

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