[tor-talk] Adblock Plus and Ghostery should be included in Tor bundle

[Brian Franklin]

Unknown makes a good point. The options should be set globally for all users of the Tor Bundle to avoid any profiling. Those who have a need for further configuration do so at their own risk.

Tracking is a danger and bandwidth is scarce. Something has to be done about the ad problem.


Discouraging people from installing ad blocking is not an option. Many people can't imagine browsing the web with ads on and won't be willing to not install blocking to avoid esoteric profiling attacks by malicious exit nodes. That is even if they are willing to accept the slowdown from ads. Ads intrude on privacy and degrade the browsing experience. Too much clutter and junk.

I would think the typical Tor user would be more against ads than your typical privacy ignorant go along to get along home user.

So we can protect everyone from tracking and exit node profiling by doing it globally or leave most people stuck with ad tracking and risk the privacy of those who do install ad tracking if we don't bundle adblock.

krugar - I never had much trouble with Ghostery. NoScript and RequestPolicy are too aggressive for everyone. If Ghostery is breaking sites I am not familiar with then excluding it should not be a problem. Adblock privacy lists stop a lot of the trackers. Even if they don't stop them all it will be a huge improvement for network speed and privacy.