Privacy Badger for Firefox

Just like most privacy-conscious users will probably tell you, getting around and about on the Internet without a basic ad-blocker is not only unsafe but it can also be a very frustrating experience.

While most ads do not necessarily pose immediate threats to your online security, this cannot be said about all of them. This is where Privacy Badger for Firefox comes into play.

You can think about this cross-browsers extension as a sort of ad-blocker that's specialized at barring the so-called spying ads and all the invisible trackers that you come along with them.

The neat thing about this extension is its all-around accessibility. For starters, you can install it directly from the Firefox Add-ons store with no more than a few mouse clicks.

Once deployed on your computer's Firefox browser, Privacy Badger works straight out of the box, without any type of user intervention on your part. In short, it sends a Do Not Track header with each request in order to assess the chances of you being tracked and automatically blocks the process.

However, that's not to say that you're not provided with the possibility of engaging with the extension. Click the extension's icon, and you're provided with a list of all potential trackers on any given webpage. You'll also notice that each tracker has a dedicated slider.

The extension uses green to show the unblocked trackers, yellow to let you know that it doesn't send cookies of referrers to the tracker in question, and red to display which trackers are blocked. Head over to the Options section and you'll discover an even broader array of settings. Just to give you a basic idea, you can whitelist domains, enable the tracking domains list, as well as import or export user data.

To conclude, there's no doubt that Privacy Badger for Firefox is a useful tool that should find its way right next to your other extensions. It's most effective against intrusive/aggressive ads and trackers, hence, it might overstep a bit and even block some useful and harmless elements.

Nevertheless, it provides enough configuration settings in order to bypass such potential problems.