Today we are introducing Badger Swarm, a new tool for Privacy Badger that runs distributed Badger Sett scans in the cloud. Badger Swarm helps us continue updating and growing Privacy Badger’s tracker knowledge, as well as continue adding new ways of catching trackers. Thanks to continually expanding Badger Swarm-powered training, Privacy Badger comes packed with its largest blocklist yet.
  • alt@lemmy.ml
    41·
    1 year ago

    Am I wrong to assume that this doesn’t add anything beyond what uBlock on medium mode does already? Except (perhaps) ease-of-use and the blocking of first-party trackers; if those even exist*.

    Don’t get me wrong; I love EFF’s work and their commitment to digital privacy. I just want to understand if I, personally, would need it.

    • LWD@lemm.ee
      4·
      1 year ago

      It’s probably overkill, I think. Based on my understanding of it, there’s a chance Privacy Badger will help you out in a scenario if you happen to re-enable too many things while unbreaking websites in Medium Mode:

      Privacy Badger was born out of our desire for an extension that would automatically analyze and block any tracker that violated consent, and that would use algorithmic methods to decide what is and isn’t tracking. But when and where that learning happens has evolved over the years.

      But at that point, it would theoretically only catch something uBlock Origin blocklists somehow missed… IMO, highly unlikely.

    • FriendBesto@lemmy.ml
      2·
      1 year ago

      If you are good at navigating the web on uBlock Medium Mode, and are okay doing the initial “troubleshooting,” to unbreak first time visits to websites, then you probably do not need it. I mean, most trackers won’t run without JS. Also, on Medium mode, you get to see most ad companies’ domains which you can then just block Globally. You can also use uBlock’s selector tool to remove specific parts of a webpage. I find that I use it a lot to remove cookie prompts and others, like YT prompts. So I can use it without having to sign on and remove the anti-adblock prompts.

      Albeit there is some overlap, I use still uBlock on Medium Mode along uMatrix since I need a bit more granular control on the sites I use. On top of LibreRedirect to avoid some of the biggest data miners.

      You should be fine.

  • Substance_P@lemmy.world
    14·
    1 year ago

    Great! I’d be interested in seeing a somewhat detailed comparison between UBlock Origin and Badger Swarm. I really liked the concept of privacy badger, and it seems like the latest updates may have addressed potential fingerprinting issues and improved its slower organic learning/blocking model. I’m definitely going to check this out. 👍

  • durablenapkin@lemmy.ca
    11·
    1 year ago

    Thanks for sharing, have just re-installed Privacy Badger (I previously uninstalled it as I use uBlock Origin) and enabled “Learn to block new trackers from your browsing” in options.

    • TerkErJerbs@lemm.ee
      82·
      1 year ago

      I’ve run UBO and Privacy Badger side by side for years. There’s no harm in having both, as UBO has lots of great features besides tracker blocking (I use the element zapper/blocker almost daily, for instance). They work well together.

    • Old_Geezer@lemmy.ca
      0·
      7 months ago

      BTW The BRAVE browser has built in tracking prevention without requiring extension overhead. Works better by default in my experience than either of the two mentioned in the post. YMMV though.