Mobile · 2018-05-23

Smart browsing with ‘Ghostery’

web browser cookies

Guess what is that 1 quality you require while surfing the Internet these days? Patience. Patience to navigate those constant pop-ups, slow connections & other irritating traits. Most of this s%$# happens because of the use of trackers embedded or cookies.

Their use is meant to bring about a more interconnected & engaging user experience. They control ads the user receives, analyzes their behavior, connects them to social media and does much more. Unfortunately, the use of these trackers can significantly slow down a Website.

Ghostery is a browser extension launched in 2009 that looks to bring the aforementioned trackers under the user’s control. The extension integrates with most Web browsers. It’s also available on both the Android & iOS smartphone platforms.

Ghostery will find all the trackers hidden in various sections of code while the user browses a Website. It will then present a report on these trackers on a dashboard which includes multiple displays. Additionally, Ghostery will help the user understand which of his/her information is being shared by a particular tracker. He will then be at liberty choose which ones to block and which to leave functional.

Consequently, the user will be able to stop sharing of their private data & bring about a faster & safer browsing experience. Ghostery also utilizes a feature known as smart blocking to automatically optimize the performance of a page.

The phone apps & browser extensions are products of Ghostery, Inc. The company is a subsidiary of Cliqz GmbH which is a Germany-based technology company that specializes in search, browser & data protection. Cliqz is owned by Mozilla & Hubert Burda Media. Ghostery, Inc, however, is based in New York, USA.

Ghostery was sold to Cliqz GMBH January of 2017. From that point the Ghostery Leads are Jeremy Tillman – Director of Product, Christoper Tino – Director of Engineering & Pete Knowlton – Community/Marketing Lead.

Ghostery is a free service on all platforms.

Click here to download ‘Ghostery’ on your Android device.

Click here to download ‘Ghostery’ on your iOS device.

Editor’s note: Certain information in the above article about the app’s present-day team was culled from old publicly available data. Appropriate corrections have been made.

 

– This is a startup profile based on publicly available material & not a review – 

 

Image Credit: Ghostery

You may also want to read: 15 best browser extensions for social media marketing


Don’t leave without reading this…

… we seek a favor. Online advertising revenues are falling, especially for media Sites. Also, as you may have realized, unlike many media & publishing organizations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we firmly believe that information, including our content must be accessible by all across the globe. But content takes a time & money to produce. If you’ve read the above piece & liked it, we urge you to contribute in our support.

 

 

 


 

Click here to opt-out of Google Analytics