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

disconnect.me

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

#71

Post by j_s »

zizee wrote: post #27
znowi wrote: post #24

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.

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.

I think Ghostery's motivations are fairly clear -- a viable business model.

I can't think of a clear business model for disconnect.me.

In any case, it's good to have a choice. People who are serious (who don't mind breaking everything) are probably using something like RequestPolicy to control cross-site requests. https://www.requestpolicy.com/

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

#72

Post by fderp »

rcsorensen wrote: post #34
byoogle wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m the developer of Disconnect and agree with you, but … To back up the op and gp, I’m seeing more and more sites that don’t degrade gracefully when their analytics service doesn’t load. I do think devs should check that their site still works when non-essential services fail to load because, even when the user isn’t running Disconnect or a similar app, this scenario is bound to happen — e.g., when there’s a network…

As the developer of Disconnect, if you're removing chunks of functionality the site developers expect to be there, you should be doing it in a way that doesn't break that functionality so absolutely. You could cloak the cookies so they're pageview specific. Or inject your own functions in place of the ones that are being blocked. Whether analytics is an essential service or not is a pretty up in the air question.

I can't imagine a situation where you need to know analytics are being consumed in order to give users the data they want (unless the site in question is itself an analytics site).

To allow / cause your site to break when analytics aren't served is, in essence, attempting to enforce an unspoken contract between gathering user info and serving them data.

As far as I'm concerned, a site that doesn't work when analytics aren't served is a site I will literally never use.

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

#73

Post by pessimizer »

datashaman wrote: post #51
jzelinskie wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 unrel…

When you say 'it was basically a wash', it is not clear what you mean. Which one breaks more pages?

I didn't think that this would be so hard to find:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/wash

n. 13. Informal An activity, action, or enterprise that yields neither marked gain nor marked loss: "[The company] doesn't do badly. That is, it's a wash" (Harper's).

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

#74

Post by walshie4 »

teamonkey wrote: post #67

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.

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

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

#75

Post by 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.

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

#76

Post by rcsorensen »

joosters wrote: post #40
rcsorensen wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the developer of Disconnect, if you're removing chunks of functionality the site developers expect to be there, you should be doing it in a way that doesn't break that functionality so absolutely. You could cloak the cookies so they're pageview specific. Or inject your own functions in place of the ones that are being blocked. Whether analytics is an essential service or not is a pretty up in the air question.

What? Do you really believe that your website should grind to a halt if a 3rd party analytics service isn't available?

No. I'm suggesting that if you're writing an extension that changes the way javascript works across the web, you should do it in the least intrusive and breaking way possible.

An extension like this changes a javascript load error from a once-in-a-while event to a happens-all-the-time event.

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

#77

Post by datashaman »

pessimizer wrote: post #73
datashaman wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say 'it was basically a wash', it is not clear what you mean. Which one breaks more pages?

I didn't think that this would be so hard to find: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/wash n. 13. Informal An activity, action, or enterprise that yields neither marked gain nor marked loss: "[The company] doesn't do badly. That is, it's a wash" (Harper's).

Thanks, I don't use this phrase, so it was confusing.
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