efforg/privacybadger

Privacy Badger is a browser extension made by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit focused on digital rights. It is designed to stop websites from tracking your behavior across the web without your knowledge. When you visit websites, many pages load hidden tracking scripts from third-party companies that follow you from site to site, building a profile of your browsing habits. Privacy Badger watches for this kind of cross-site tracking and, once it has seen the same tracker following you across several different sites, it automatically blocks that tracker. The blocking happens on its own without you needing to manage a list of blocked services. Privacy Badger also sends two privacy signals to websites: the Global Privacy Control signal, which tells companies to opt you out of data sharing and selling, and the Do Not Track signal, which asks companies not to track you at all. If a company receives those signals and continues tracking you anyway, Privacy Badger adds that tracker to its block list. Beyond tracker blocking, the extension replaces certain embedded widgets, like video players and comment sections that would normally load tracking code, with a click-to-activate placeholder. You can still use the widget by clicking on it, but tracking does not start until you choose to. It also cleans tracking data that Facebook and Google add to links when you click them. The extension is available for Chrome and Firefox through the Privacy Badger homepage. The source code is open and licensed under GPLv3. Development is maintained by the EFF, with public contributor meetings held weekly for anyone who wants to participate.