There seems to be a bug in Safari causing this. Please run the following command in the terminal to fix it
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -f /Applications/Safari.app
To simplify Dawn installation on Linux we have created a set of instrutions. Please check here
Microphone/Camera Mute Switch is an advanced privacy setting offered in Ghostery Dawn. We offer our users a very convenient feature that makes it very easy to turn off your microphone and camera when the browser is asking you for access, like during a video conference call.
HTTPS-Only Mode is an advanced privacy setting offered in Ghostery Dawn. Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), the fundamental protocol for how browsers and websites communicate, is unprotected often susceptible to unwanted surveillance and possibly manipulation. HTTPS-Only Mode ensures that all communications made with the Ghostery Browsers are done so with HTTP over TLS (HTTPS), a secure and encrypted form of communication that is a much safer protocol.
Tracker Cloaking Protection is an advanced privacy setting offered in Ghostery Dawn. Some trackers use a technique called CNAME cloaking where they pretend to be first-party code by mimicking legitimate subdomains of the websites they are present on, thereby avoiding detection as a third-party technology. The Ghostery Browser has a technology to unmask and block these cloaked trackers.
Referrer Data Leakage Protection is an advanced privacy setting offered in Ghostery Dawn. When you click on links to navigate to websites, the URL from the original source – the referrer – will often include potentially sensitive private information that can be leaked to third-party trackers that are present on the destination website. For example, if you click on a link in an email, it could look something like this: https://website.com/?email=bob.smithl@email.com&firstname=Bob&lastname=Smith. This kind of link, also known as TellTale URLs, can include your name, email address, or other personal information that can then be linked to third-party trackers. Ghostery Protects against this with a method called referrer trimming where it strips out this personal information before the URL can be sent to a third-party tracker.
Dynamic First Party Isolation is an advanced privacy setting offered in Ghostery Dawn. We have enabled first-party isolation by default to better protect users against cross-site tracking. This feature prevents cross-site tracking by keeping all browser storage (cookies, cache, etc) isolated between each site you visit.
Redirect Tracking Protection is an advanced privacy setting offered in Ghostery Dawn. It is a tactic used by ad-technologies to bypasses third-party cookie restrictions by invisibly redirecting users that have clicked on an ad to a tracking URL before they arrive to their desired location such as an e-commerce store. This very brief stopover lets the tracker set a first-party cookie, bypassing third-party cookie protections, and makes it easier for them to track users at their final destinations. Redirect Tracking Protection is a technology built by Firefox that clears cookies from known trackers once every 24 hours, making it harder for these technologies to build a long-term profile using your browsing history.
You can install extensions via the Firefox store.
Not yet. However, we are working on building specific extensions on Chrome and Firefox that will let users set Ghostery Search as their default. Stay tuned!
Ghostery Dawn is significantly more private than its competitors. This is because, in addition to hosting the typical features of a browser, our browser has Ghostery’s signature privacy protection technologies baked into it.
Like many browsers, we offer a private browsing mode (Ghost mode) and a private search engine. On top of that, Ghostery Dawn employs technology that actively shields your data from trackers. Those two signature technologies of Ghostery are known as (1) tracker-blocking, which stops trackers from being planted on the sites you visit, and (2) anti-tracking, our supplemental capability, which anonymizes your personally identifiable information should any trackers get through.
Now owned by and named after Crownpeak, Evidon, Inc. was a New York City-based tech company that provides Digital Governance solutions for Business. The Ghostery brand and products were owned by Evidon, Inc. from 2009 to 2017 (during which time it was called Ghostery, Inc.) before they were sold to Cliqz GmbH in 2017 and operates as Ghostery GmbH since then.
Ghostery does not sell or otherwise share data of any kind with Crownpeak.
No. Ghostery does not share collected data of any kind with third parties.
Transparency and integrity are important to us. If you have any questions or concerns, you may view the Ghostery source code on Github or reach out to us at privacy@ghostery.com.
More information on what and how we use data can be found in our privacy statements. In addition, our Ghostery Browser Extension source code is public and can be viewed at no cost on Github.
Transparency and integrity are important to us. If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to us at privacy@ghostery.com.
If you choose to open a user account, we will collect your name and email address. Usage of this data is limited to: (i) syncing your settings across our products, (ii) serving as your login credentials to access certain products and features, (iii) communicating directly to you through your email address to give you information about our products, updates and upgrades.
Note that no account needs to be created to use Ghostery Browser Extension; it is simply an option to make things more convenient for the user.
No. Data shared with Ghostery through the opt-in program is solely related to tracking technologies that the user encounters – it is not connected with user accounts in any way.
No account needs to be created to use the Ghostery Extension; it is simply an option to make things more convenient for the user.
Ghostery is supported in Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Yandex, Safari, Edge, and Internet Explorer. Each browser extension must be downloaded and installed separately.
From within the drop-down control panel, you can click on any tracker to reveal a short description of who provides it. You can then view more details about this tracker and what it collects by clicking the ‘learn more’ link.
Ghostery analyzes every network request generated by a web page and matches the outgoing URL patterns against a proprietary database of known tracker vendors to determine if the user is being tracked and by whom.
Ghostery is a browser extension, a piece of software that extends the functionality of a web browser on a desktop computer. Ghostery monitors all the different web servers that are being called from a particular web page and matches them with a library of data collection tools (trackers). If it finds a match, Ghostery shows that tracker in the list in the pop-up information bubble or control panel. If you’ve configured Ghostery to block communication with one or more of these companies, it interrupts the call from leaving the browser.
This is different than opting-out or blocking cookies because those strategies still allow the browser to communicate with the web server (they just try to alter the communication or the response). When blocking is enabled, Ghostery never allows the communication in the first place.
Ghostery differs from simply “blocking cookies” because that still allows the browser (with your IP address) to communicate with the web server — it just prevents cookies from being placed on your machine. The requests are still happening, and data about you is still being transmitted. Ghostery completely intercepts those requests and never allows the communication to happen in the first place.
Ghostery has a proprietary library of over 5000 trackers from over 3000 companies that we update continually.
Additionally, Ghostery’s Ad-Block module uses popular open-source filter lists which include thousands of more trackers.
Ghostery makes money when users upgrade to our subscription plan which offers advanced privacy protection and ad-free search.
The Human Web is an open-source technology that uses the power of anonymous group data create innovative browser technologies to make the internet more private. Users that participate in the Human Web contribute anonymous information related to trackers, websites, and search queries that are then analyzed and evaluated for relevance and safety. This data is used to create anonymous group models that power the private quick-search, anti-tracking, anti-phishing technologies.
The Human Web is built using world-leading privacy-by-design practices that ensures that any data that is collected is done completely anonymously without any personally identifiable information. To achieve this, the Human Web implements two core components: its data collection framework and its proxy network.
The Human Web data collection framework requires that the data points contributed by users are evaluated only as a single, aggregated event, disentangling these signals from any personally-identifiable information such as timestamps or user IDS. Furthermore, The Human Web filters out any sensitive or personal information from URLs that are deemed unsafe (e.g., twitter.com/username) that can be used to identify an individual person. Thus, we are neither able to combine data from multiple entries or multiple visits to websites, nor to link this information with any personal information, like email addresses or user IDs, that can be used to identify an individual.
As a further safety precaution, this information is sent through the Human Web proxy network, a series of peer-to-peer proxies that remove information like the user IP addresses, making it virtually impossible to determine who or where the data comes from. The proxy network itself is blind to the content of the data its sending, adding a further security measure to the process. Consequently, all data we collect is virtually unidentifiable by anyone, including ourselves, so that even if our security were breached by a hacker our outside organization, there would be absolutely no way to tie this information to individuals.
The specific data contributed through the Human Web includes:
Though the Human Web is more powerful as more Ghostery users join it, participation in it is completely optional. If you do not want the Human Web to collect anonymous statistical data about your searches and website visits, you can adjust your settings in the Ghostery Menu.
If you’d like to dive into the weeds and learn more about the Human Web, you can check out the source code in our open-source Github repo.
Yes, all the Ghostery Browser Extensions and Mobile Apps are completely free to download and use.
Ghostery 8 introduces a new suite of features designed to strengthen privacy, block ads, and enhance website performance.
Enhanced Anti-Tracking: Developed by our parent company Cliqz, our Enhanced Anti-Tracking feature is a heuristic approach to real-time, algorithmic tracking protection. Like Ghostery’s main blocking mechanism, it monitors all third-party requests. However, instead of simply blocking those requests, it analyzes them for personally identifiable information and then strips out that information before the request is sent. Enhanced Anti-Tracking supplements Ghostery’s block-list approach by catching anything that might have been missed. Therefore, even if trackers are allowed to execute, you can feel safe knowing that all personal information has been anonymized in the request.
You can learn more about how it works in this article from Cliqz. Under the section header “Building the Global Safe Set”, we discuss what data is collected via anti-tracking. In order for this system to work, we must analyze the tracker requests for patterns to determine what should be deemed unsafe. However, this is done anonymously and without compromising user privacy.
Enhanced Ad Blocking: Our new visual ad-blocker complements Ghostery tracker blocking and anti-tracking. It catches and eliminates ads from a filter list and does not require any user-generated data.
Smart Blocking: We developed our automatic Smart Blocking feature to make it easier for users to optimize their browsing experience and blocking choices. It automatically blocks slow or non-secure trackers, for example, and allows certain trackers that we know may cause breakage on popular websites when blocked. This function is run locally and does not use any personal data.
With the update of Safari 12, all extensions using legacy code have been disabled. We have built a new Ghostery Lite extension that will work with the updated Mojave/Safari 12 release. However, its not in production yet. For now… Here are the instructions on how to reinstall Ghostery 5.
1) Open Safari
2) Go to Preferences in Safari
3) Select the ‘Extensions’ icon
4) Find Ghostery in the left panel
5) Check the box near Ghostery
6) A message will pop up saying: “Are you sure you want to enable the extension ‘Ghostery’“, then select Enable
7) You’re good to go!
There are 3 symbols in the purple box that provide alerting.
Explosion = Broken Page
Snail = Slow Page
Shark Fin = Non-Secure Tag Detected
There is both a paid and free version of Glow. Both versions are private, but with a Ghostery subscription, Glow is also Ad-Free!
This one-of-a-kind search engine does NOT log your search history, which means you get served objective results, not results that are filtered by the likelihood you’ll click on them. It is built in to our Ghostery Dawn Browser and also as an extension in both Firefox and Chrome.
The Ghostery subscripition is a step forward in our plan to build premium products and services that are unlocked with subscriptions, in addition to our free Ghostery extension. This new model will not only help us keep the lights on, but will allow us to invest in more advanced products and technologies, provide more options for how users integrate privacy into their lives, and empower all to shape the world of privacy by financially supporting services they choose.
This is just the beginning of “cleaner, faster, safer.” Stay tuned for the rest!
As a Ghostery Subscriber, you will gain access to historical tracker insights that reveal blocking trends and help monitor your digital footprint, as well as access to the Ghostery Insights product. You also receive exclusive perks such as custom color themes, priority support service, and more features currently in development. With the addition of our desktop browser Ghostery Dawn, included is our very own private search engine Ghostery Glow! As a subscriber you also get Ad-Free private search.
If you end your Ghostery Plus subscription, you will no longer be charged. You will, however, continue to have access to features until your subscription time runs out (time remaining before you would have been charged again). During this period, you may re-subscribe to resume your subscription and billing as usual.
If you would like to subscribe again after your time runs out, you must buy a new subscription and reenter payment information.
Your password must be between 8 and 50 characters and only contain letters, numbers and/or the following symbols: ! @ # $ % ^ & * = + ( ) <> { } [ \ ] ; : , . / ?
Currently, Ghostery only supports payments from the following countries:
USA
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Canada
China
Croatia
Cyprus
Czechia
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
While browsing in Ghost Tab, Ghostery does not store the following data on your device:
To manage trackers, tap on Ghosty in the toolbar. You will see two lists – one showing all trackers on your current site and one showing all trackers in general (global).
To restrict or allow a tracker on your current site only, choose the appropriate tab, find the tracker and choose “restrict” or “allow.” Note that choosing “block” will block the tracker across all sites, and choosing “Unblock” will allow it across all sites. You may also bulk block or unblock all trackers, or by tracker category.
We do offer more than one result. To locate the other results, swipe right to left. If you press ‘enter,’ you will be taken to the results list from the complementary search engine. Our default search engine is DuckDuckGo, but you can change this in the settings.
We developed our automatic Smart Blocking feature to make it easier for users to optimize their browsing experience and blocking choices. It automatically blocks slow or non-secure trackers, for example, and allows certain trackers that we know may cause breakage on popular websites when blocked. This function is run locally and does not use any personal data.
The Ghostery Privacy Browser for Android is compatible for Android Version 4.1 and later.
The Ghostery Privacy Browser for iOS is compatible for iOS Version 9.0 and later.
We try to anticipate your search to give you suitable results as quickly as possible. We developed our own quick search mechanism to show you the most relevant results as fast as possible.
The Ghostery Privacy Browser allows you to select from several different complementary search engines that provide additional search results beyond Ghost Search. DuckDuckGo is automatically set as your search engine unless changed.
To change your default option:
If your Ghosty is wearing a mask, it means that you are in a Ghost Tab. This means that there will be no cookies or browser history saved after you close the session.
To delete your browsing history, follow these steps:
For Android:
For iOS:
Instructions:
The Ghostery Tracker library consists of over 3000 trackers and 5000 scripts; however, new advertising and marketing technologies are being created all the time. To keep our users as protected as possible, as our users encounter new trackers, we’re adding them to our list. But it is possible to encounter a new tracker that Ghostery is not blocking.
Developed by our parent company Cliqz, our Enhanced Anti-Tracking feature is a heuristic approach to real-time, algorithmic tracking protection. Like Ghostery’s main blocking mechanism, it monitors all third-party requests. However, instead of simply blocking those requests, it analyzes them for personally identifiable information and then strips out that information before the request is sent. Enhanced Anti-Tracking supplements Ghostery’s block-list approach by catching anything that might have been missed. Therefore, even if trackers are allowed to execute, you can feel safe knowing that all personal information has been anonymized in the request.
You can learn more about how it works in this article from Cliqz. Under the section header “Building the Global Safe Set”, we discuss what data is collected via anti-tracking. In order for this system to work, we must analyze the tracker requests for patterns to determine what should be deemed unsafe. However, this is done anonymously and without compromising user privacy.
The Ghostery Privacy Browser contains an integrated quick search that allows you to go directly to your destination without any detours. In addition, we do not collect any personal data unlike other search engines. Thus, by using Ghostery you are protecting your online privacy.
We also provide you with our anti-tracking technology which helps to keep your data safe. This technology avoids your data being tracked by third party trackers. This is done by altering strings which are unique to your browser. It protects you from usual tracking methods like canvas fingerprinting.
Ghostery does offer a mobile browser with anti-tracking features as a stand-alone app for iPhones, iPads, iPods and Android. We also work inside Firefox on Android phones.