Awhile back I switched from Privacy Badger (the Electronic Frontier Foundation [or EFF]'s extension) to Ghostery after the EFF's own "Cover Your Tracks" website (which tests, among other things, whether or not your browser is leaving a unique "fingerprint" as you browse the web, which is used by data brokers and other businesses to track you via a process known as "fingerprinting."

Companies build a "fingerprint" of your computer/browser combo - even if you've opted out of all forms of tracking and are blocking third-party cookies and/or are using a traditional ad blocking extension - by gathering and analyzing data re: the way your computer's hardware and web browser display data to you as you surf the web. The vast majority of computers - even two that have the same exact hardware spec - can leave a unique fingerprint based on small quirks/differences in the way the hardware in your machine interacts with your network connection and web browser software (i.e. your web browser) interacts with that network connection. Two machines with the exact same hardware may respond to network requests with slightly different cadences, and that gives potential bad actors one key piece of data with which they can start to build a profile on you so that they can track you even when you've done everything you can to maintain your privacy (be that preventing them from leaving tracking cookies on your machine, using a VPN to mask your true location, etc...).

I was stunned to find that after installing Ghostery, my browser *no longer left a unique fingerprint* in the EFF's own "Cover Your Tracks" web test at https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/. Not only does Ghostery help block inline and pop-up ads on the sites I most commonly visit, it even helps prevent browser fingerprinting! I couldn't tell you *how* it does that, but in my experience, the proof is in the pudding, and when the Ghostery extension prevented the EFF's own fingerprinting test from seeing a unique fingerprint coming from my machine (when the EFF's OWN tool designed to prevent that from happening failed!) it's hard not to feel like Ghostery is an essential tool in your privacy toolbox.

I could not recommend Ghostery more. Not only is it 100% free (and OPEN SOURCE, which is huge as it allows independent developers like myself full access to view the extension's code and ensure that the app's developers stay on the straight and narrow), but it does what it says it does incredibly well.

If you (and your family's) online privacy matters to you, get Ghostery, turn it on, and know that you've added one of the best, most effective tools for achieving and maintaining that privacy on an ever-more-invasive web... all for FREE!