Ghostery is a FireFox Add-on that analyzes the page you’re on and shows you if it contains any web bugs.
Ghostery originally started out as GreaseMonkey script I created last year called Invisible Web. Turning it into a Firefox extension made it a bit more user-friendly and made updating the definitions database easier.
It’s a fun side project that I’ve been playing with for a little over a month now. In that time its been installed over 4000 times, mostly thanks to Hacker News & Reddit, been mocked by Fred Wilson, is currently featured on the homepage of CrazyEgg, and was written about by Greg Yardley.
I’ve also gotten tons of great feedback and contributions from Scott Switzer, Greg Yardley, Neal Richter, Mitch Fournier, Scott Rafer, Jay Meattle, Rex Dixon and Hiten Shah. Thanks to everyone for taking time to check it out.
Get Ghostery now. I’d love your feedback.
Have a great and prosperous 2009,
David
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{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
David,
This looks fantastic. Thank you very much for your hard work. Will definitely give feedback once I've tested!
Matt,
Thanks for taking the time to check it out!
Cheers,
David
Great work on Ghostery, David. I'm looking forward to the future of it
very nice and informative site.. i will try to use this Ghostery…
thanks for sharing…
reply
it seems like an interesting FF addons, thank you for sharing
This is worth a try. I'll tell you if I like it too later.
Hi David. I love this. Just blogged about it on the Stanford Center for Internet and Society website (http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/node/5992). Good luck.
Ryan
Well done! Have you thought about:
1) history reporting — stats on which Web bugs I've encountered and/or tend to encounter the most, and
2) option toggle — when I click any of the bug names, I want to be opted out of (or back into) being tracked by that particular bug.
–Kent
Kent,
I love both those ideas. Can I steal them?
Having fun checking out your website, thanks for checking out Ghostery. A lot of changes in the work, including open sourcing the extension, have a number of contributors lined up, exciting.
Cheers,
David
Yes, please steal. Thinking further: a way to opt in to share aggregate information about what bugs you encounter and what bugs you turn off might also be useful.
–Kent
David: I need to contact you offline about Bzzster as soon as possible, please. Just followed you on Twitter; could DM it to you.
Cool.
That suggestion is definitely on my list and next up in the queue.
Cheers,
David
Pleasure sharing it with out readers.
Cancel's are awesome!!!!
love,
jennifer, ashley, christopher, and david cancel
I’m really impressed with your article, that was exactly what I was looking for.. it was certainly a great read for me, I’ll be looking forward for more of your articles cause that’s one of the best I’ve read recently. Keep up the good work
Thank you
thanks!
Fantastic !
Thank you very much for your hard work.
Keep up posting good work ……………………….. : )
I have also been using Ghostery and find that your two suggestions are valid for me, ie 1) option toggle — when I click any of the bug names, I want to be opted out of (or back into) being tracked by that particular bug. 2) history reporting — stats on Web bugs I've encountered
Thanks David for your well appreciated efforts!
Cheers,
Andres
Cool feedback, thank you.
Definitely adding them to the development list.
David
I love being able to see who'w watching my every move…. Now is there any way the tracking cookies can be stopped?
I never tried this Ghostery addon for firefox extension made it a bit more user-friendly and made updating the definitions database easier. Thanks for sharing this info to us. Good day.