Do Ad-Blockers pose a risk to your privacy?

[Silly John Fatty]

I'm looking for the best possible Ad-Blocker for Safari right now, which I heard was uBlock Origin (but doesn't work for Safari 13 anymore), and so now I'm looking for an alternative. There's so many Ad-Blockers out there, I don't want to try (and eventually pay) for every single one.

What I'm wondering is: Are Ad-Blockers a risk for your privacy? Some time ago I remember reading that some of them are directing your traffic to some of their servers, or something along those lines, and that therefore some Ad-Blockers aren't safe. I can't remember exactly what it said or where I read it. I searched for something like that online but couldn't find anything.

Is every Ad-Blocker potentially safe? Is there any Data they are uploading to servers, or any informations like Cookies, etc. that they collect? This could help me find the right Plugin for Safari. Thanks!

 

[StellarVixen]

The only way to have a peace of mind is to look at positively reviewed open source ad blockers.

Open source ad blockers have their source code available to everyone, so that people can see if something shady is going on behind the scenes.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

The only way to have a peace of mind is to look at positively reviewed open source ad blockers.

Open source ad blockers have their source code available to everyone, so that people can see if something shady is going on behind the scenes.

That makes sense, I never thought of that.

Here's a list of all open source Ad-Blockers for Safari, in case someone is interested: https://alternativeto.net/software/adblock-for-chrome/?license=opensource&platform=safari

So I guess now I'll have to find out if any of these are doing anything shady behind the scenes, right? That sounds like a lot of work.

It's a real pain what totally unimportant things humans have to deal with every day. What a waste of precious time, considering we only live once. Look at the size of the universe, we can't even figure out why we exist, why we're able to think and be conscious, and what do we do? Spend time with trying to block ads online.

We should create a public Ad-Blocking organisation with everyone being able to become member, and then we should pay developers to build and maintain the best and most trustable open-source Ad-Blocker of all times - and never ever have to deal with this crap again.

I wonder why nobody hasn't done that yet… we're 8 billions, come on!

 

[StellarVixen]

I think most people are not concerned and pay attention as much as you do. They just want something that works, and don’t give it much thought.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

I'm pretty typical in that I just want an ad-blocker that works today. I'm not a programmer and there's no way for me to inspect open source code and figure out if something nefarious is happening behind the scenes.

Note that there are people who also observe closed-source software with external tools to monitor whether or not something is happening.

None of these analyses will be perfect and ad-blocking is a constantly changing landscape. Adblocking software that worked in the past may not be as adept today as advertisers find new and better ways to sneak ads past filters.

For sure, no one is using Internet Junkbuster (circa 1997) on their modern computers today.

I am perfectly certain that whatever ad-blocking strategy I use today might be bettered by something else in the future.

Currently I am using Wipr on my Mac and my iDevices for Safari ad-blocking. On my Mac and PCs, I use Adguard on all non-Safari web browsers. I'm sure one day I will be using different ad-blocking utilities.

 

[velocityg4]

The only two I could recommend would be Ghostery Lite and DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials. They have pretty good reputations. I haven't tried them in Safari as I don't use Safari. They're decent in other browsers but not as good as my preferred add ons.

The lack of good extensions has kept me from using the improved Safari. Most of the ones I use in Firefox aren't available. Such as uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger and Last Pass. When looking at the Apps Store. I though Last Pass was an option. Turned out it was a standalone desktop App.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

velocityg4 touches on a point that I alluded to.

Ad-blocking strategies vary by web browser and often platform as well. A better performing ad-blocking on one web browser may not work as well on a different browser or might not even be available.

It is really important to remember that this stuff changes regularly. Ad-blocking that worked really well two years ago might not be state of the art today.

One can stack multiple ad-blocking tools however there are diminishing returns and each extra browser extension will slow down the performance.

Heck, if your ad-blocking too has multiple filters, each filter will slow down performance a little bit and use up a little more memory; don't enable the Polish filter if you're not visiting Polish websites regularly.

As with any privacy solution, there is a balance between effectiveness, performance, convenience and sometimes cost.

One more recent alternative strategy I've taken is private browsing in an alternate browser. For casual web surfing where I'm not set out to do a specific task (e.g., reviewing transactions and account balances at my brokerage), I'll use private browsing. All web history, cookies, etc. are gone (poof!!!) when I exit the browser.

 

[StellarVixen]

It’s a game of cat and mouse. Webmasters constantly look for ways to make their websites immune to ad blockers. Hence why ad blockers need constant updates.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Most definitely. AdBlockers have access to everything on your webpage - everything you type in, etc.

I use 1Blocker and AdGuard Pro (paid). 1Blocker works great for my iOS and Mac OS devices while AdGuard Pro works for my windows devices.

I do run apps that monitor all my traffic and alert me to traffic I haven’t approved before (takes some time for things to calm down once you set it up this way) but that’s really the only way to know for sure what’s going on. A lot of these apps phone home and talk to servers all throughout the day.

DuckDuckGo is a great search engine that focuses on privacy - they have a browser too (which I haven’t used - I use Safari).

Like with anything - unless you do your homework, you’ll be a weak link and exploitable. Even those of us who have done our homework and run these apps can make mistakes too.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

Another thing to consider is what your web browser normally does behind the scenes.

For this reason, I no longer use standard Google Chrome. I am now using the Marmaduke ungoogled Chromium build from chromium.woolyss.com for both Mac and Windows. I am also using Waterfox Current from waterfox.net as a Firefox compatible browser. I use Adguard with these browsers.

I also have Vivaldi on my computers; I am using Vivaldi's built-in ad-blocking instead of a third-party extension.

Today, most of my computer-based web browsing is done with the ungoogled Chromium in incognito mode with Adguard enabled.

For many what I am doing is too much of a hassle. For some it isn't adequate. For sure, the more you care about this the more time you'll spend on it and the less time you'll have for other things. Updating Marmaduke ungoogled Chromium is not automatic. I am not syncing Chromium bookmarks in the cloud.

At some point I might throw in the towel. Or maybe some day some of this will be easier. I don't know. But I am pretty sure that whatever I am doing today I won't be doing exactly the same way in a couple of years.

 

[yurc]

Host 0.0.0.0 re-routing solution is also viable, but it might be a little effort. I update monthly my host list, and for extra layers I am browsing using Chromium without being Google account sign-in and Brave.

For Paypal and banking stuff mostly using Safari, I don’t want mess with security when finance things included.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

I've never looked into this however

Host 0.0.0.0 re-routing solution is also viable, but it might be a little effort. I update monthly my host list, and for extra layers I am browsing using Chromium without being Google account sign-in and Brave.

I've never looked into this carefully but it's possible that this is what a Pi-Hole does (a Raspberry Pi ad- and malware-blocking solution). My assumption (which could be wrong) is that the Pi-Hole functions as a proxy.

About ten years ago I ran custom firmware on my WiFi router that did this. It updated blocklists every 24 hours. The beauty was that it blocked sites at the router for all devices on that network including mobile devices that didn't have ad-blocking features during that era.

Some of those same ad-blocking lists (like EasyList, Fanboy) are still used by browser ad-blocking extensions today.

Both the old router based strategy and the Pi-Hole only work at home. You still need a different strategy for mobile devices that operate on networks other than the ones you control.

For a short while I added some entries to my /etc/hosts file but this is not a scalable solution. Plus all of the ad-blocking strategies already cover the standard domains (e.g., doubleclick.net, a bunch of google.com domains).

You still need to run something fairly automated and local on each device that connects to the Internet.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I recommend using “Lockdown.” It is free and nothing leaves your computer. Your privacy stays intact.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

(sigh)

Again, no ad-blocking solution is perfect. Whether one uses Lockdown or whatever is popular/well regarded tomorrow, the fact of the matter remains that none of these are perfect.

"Nothing leaves your computer" is a near impossibility.

The only way to achieve this is to never connect to the Internet.

"Your privacy stays intact" is essentially impossible.

The latter isn't achievable at all. Even if you never use the Internet, your privacy is still subject to a security breach of the service provider. That's right, someone could hack into your brokerage firm's database, the public television charity that you donate to, a credit card issuing bank, your power utility's customer database, the DMV's registration database, your health insurance, medical clinic, etc.

Hell, there are consumer credit reporting agencies that have suffered data breaches.