2020-06-20 Update
I’ve moved away from Disconnect and Privacy Badger and now use/recommend uBlock Origin.
2015-12-15 Update
As mentioned in Safe Browsing Tips, I have moved away from Ghostery and now recommend Disconnect and Privacy Badger due to Ghostery’s border line belligerent update notices and frequent resetting of user preferences upon new releases. It is not that you need two extensions (Disconnect and Privacy Badger) to replace Ghostery but each extension offers valuable and unique functionality which is better (and in addition to) Ghostery’s functionality.
Background
This article provides more detail on what NoScript is and how to use it. For a brief overview, see Safe Browsing Tips.
Ghostery is a Firefox extension that “identifies and allows you to block the 3rd parties (web bugs) that are hidden on the current page you’re visiting.” - Ghostery > about. Generally speaking, Ghostery blocks bad things on web pages for you.
Details
I’ve had great luck with Ghostery “just working”, not even noticing it is installed and working! I do make a few changes to Ghostery’s configuration to make it less intrusive and ensure it is always up to date.
I turn off the Bubble Alert, allow Ghostery to Auto Update and Auto Block new Items, and block all items. To do this:
- Turn off Bubble Alerts - right click on the Ghostery icon and selection Options. Select the Advanced tab and uncheck next to Show Alert Bubble
- Block New elements by Default - in Advanced tab, uncheck next to Block new elements by default
- Block all items - go to the General tab and select the 3pes tab, click the Select all. Do the same for Cookies (on the Cookies tab)
Don’t forget to click the Save button to save your configuration changes when you are done with the above steps.
As mentioned before, Ghostery usually just works and you don’t need to change or do anything. You will notice a little Ghost looking icon in your menu bar, if it is blocking something on the page it will display a bubble alert next to the Ghost icon showing the number of things blocked. You can click the Ghost icon to show the list of items blocked and allow to unblock the items. Currently, I have never needed to allow an item to get a page to work properly.
