Ghostery for Firefox v2.8.2 is out! The first thing you’ll notice is your newer, prettier options panel:
Notice how nothing’s crossed out, and there’s no checkmarks to start blocking trackers. This is because I’ve whitelisted onthemedia.org, the site I’m currently on. Once you click “Edit Blocking Options,” however…
…and the boxes appear. In this new panel, you now have the option to turn tracking on by tracker and unwhitelist onthemedia.org completely. Notice that you can also pause blocking in the lower lefthand corner of the box if you’d like to reload the page and have blocking turned off for that instance. If the new panel weirds you out, we also provided the ability to keep the old one hanging around. Just go into Ghostery’s advanced options and check the box.
We also tweaked our latest big feature addition, click-to-play. Before, when you clicked the Ghosty replacement on common social buttons and such, it would trigger the page to reload with just that button available. Now, it loads the content in place without breaking your user experience. Pretty nifty. You can download the latest version of Ghostery for Firefox here [LINK], and see the full list of changes below.
Ghostery for Firefox v2.8.2
- New panel UI for Ghostery.
- Fixed issue with reappearing toolbar Ghostery icon.
- Click-to-play optimization: inline replacement of common scripts like Twitter Button, Facebook Like, etc.
- Click-to-play purple box and UI box corrected listing.
- Click-to-play now toggles cookies as well as trackers when allowing through click-to-play UI.
- Removed DOM mutation scanning for this release.
- Update system now checks for version file before downloading the massive update
- Added the toggle for new panel in options under Advanced -> Display Options.
I really appreciate your quality product, thank you!
Thanks for all your work and time that you put into your pet product here. When I’m able I will help support your cause. Right now I’m unemployed and have a daughter getting married so money seems to be flying out the door. Please keep up the great work you have here. We love ya’ man.
Thank YOU Thomas.. You can help support Ghostery by opting in to GhostRank. This helps us do new super cool analytics and reporting.
Happy browsing!
Just amazing,i love your work Ghostery Team, keep it up, using it on Firefox and works amazingly. A must have add-on.
awesome update, this UI improvement seems like a major step forward for ghostery.
And even though I have been a user from the beginning, I believe this will attract more of the general public who get swept up in this whole internet privacy era.
Make ghostery avialable for android. Thanks.
Greetings!
It is on the roadmap!
Great! Love it! I was wishing for a ‘one check off for all’ button. Thanks!
It’s in R&D right now, you can expect updates as soon as we have something working!
I shouldn’t have to remove ghostery to play a ruddy game on facebook. If there’s a way to get around it, it certainly isn’t OBVIOUS and it certainly isn’t user unfriendly. What a shame.
Greetings!
Depending on which browser you are using you can add Facebook to your whitelist and all should work.
Hi,
Thanks for trying Ghostery out. I’m sorry you feel that way, but if you use effective blocking programs to block everything, sometimes you’ll have content that suffers a bit of interference. That said, we have a team that is contantly working on making the internet work without tracking while using Ghostery. Also, Ghostery has a fairly easy-to-use options area that provides detailed control over how trackers are blocked and where. I hope you’ll give it another shot!
I would just like to say that the best compliment I can give Ghostery is I barely know it’s there. I like that. A lot. It doesn’t nag or make crazy decisions that I have to change, it just works. Thanks for that. It’s very intuitive, and since I have started using it, I put it on every Firefox installation I have. Great add-on!!!
I definitely second this comment! It works great, and I don’t have to muck with it.
@Kandi, Sep. 9:
Right on! Ghostery is one of my best “allies” on FF. Everybody’s s-ware should work this well! Hope the G-team is keeping a wary eye on our dear “Uncle” and his corporate friends; spyware comes in many, and increasingly insidious, forms, especially now that “cognitive infiltration” has been given a White House appointment.
Best to all — RNM
I am very grateful for a most necessary, wonderful app and your hard work. I agree with Merrilee – it would be very nice to have a button to check “all on” or all off.” Thanks!
More attractive, but gives less information. In the old version the sub-menus for each tracker would show you each instance on the page, including the full URL used (in a tool tip) plus the “View Script Source” option. While these items aren’t necessary, I’m never a fan of UI changes that seem to only make things “pretty” without significantly improving the actual usability of the UI and/or *remove* features (both seem to be the case here). Perhaps there’s a way to add the abilities of the old UI in a non-intrusive way? For now I’ve reverted to the old interface (thanks for that option).
Hi D.C.,
To see source URLs for trackers, check off “Show bug script sources (in the browser popup)” on Ghostery’s options page under the Advanced tab.
To access the “View Script Source” option, click one of these source URLs.
Please give the new findings panel a try! One advantage of it is that you can toggle multiple trackers on/off at once without having to reopen Ghostery’s menu. We’d love to get more suggestions on how to make it better.
I noticed that the option to put the menu back the way it is marked “temporarily”, which is a little disconcerting. Are you planning to remove that option at some point? Please don’t. Your design is fine, but UI consistency is important. What’s the point of setting a system-wide preference for the style of windows and widgets if everything down to Firefox extensions ignores it?
I do thank you for your efforts to produce a great product that I use every day.
Hi Fred,
Thanks for using Ghostery. The “temporary” checkbox is actually a part of our effort for cross-platform UI consistency. The goal is to have all of the Ghostery products look and function in a similar fashion, and Mozilla just gave us the ability to make Ghostery for Firefox more in line with the others. We will never take away any necessary functionality, though, so please don’t be alarmed.
Firefox shouldn’t be ignoring our new panel edits. Is it for you?
No, native UI consistency is better. Your cross platform UI consistency is just another inconsistent clashing style with which you would like to brand Ghostery.
Agree with the earlier comments by D.C regarding the “old” interface to which I’ve also reverted.
No, I mean *Ghostery* is ignoring the UI preferences you set in your operating system. For example, if you use a dark Windows theme, the blue-on-white Ghostery window will look terribly out of place.
As long as you don’t remove the option to use the native UI style, I’ll be content. I notice other users are giving you a hard time for changing the window, which accomplishes nothing, so I’ll apologize on their behalf. You do make a great product and I hope you keep at it.
I have to agree with the requests for native UI consistency. When I’m using Ghostery on Firefox, it is not possible for me to care less how it looks or acts on Chrome. When I’m using it on Windows, I have zero interest how it works on OS X, or vice versa (and I do use it on multiple platforms).
I don’t dislike the new UI just because it’s different from the old one but because it’s different from every single other UI element in every other menu/widget/tool/etc. in my browser and functions in a different way from all of them, most of which have a relatively high level of consistency (at least among the ones I usually use). I click on any of the other icons in my status bar, and I get a similar experience out of all of them, with a native menu and predictable behavior. Then there’s Ghostery, doing whatever it feels like…
Um, why? Why so damn conspicuous? Fail Ghostery, nothing but fail.
Why the harsh words? If you don’t like looking at Ghosty (we’ve never gotten that one before, he’s too cute) we give you the option to hide him from the toolbar. If you don’t like the Purple Bubble, you can adjust it or remove it completely if you like! Let me know what I can do to help, if you have questions.
I loved it, very useful… however, that new ui… I had to ditch it. I may give it another try someday, especially if I can go back to the good version, that or it settled down a bit.
Thanks for trying though.
Hi Chugger,
Thanks for using Ghostery!
If you’d like to get the old menu back for now, you can do so in Ghostery’s options (under the Advanced tab).
But please give the new findings panel a try! One advantage of it is that you can toggle multiple trackers on/off at once without having to reopen Ghostery’s menu.
Also, we plan on removing the need to have to click “Edit Blocking Options” in the future.
just checking….. if there is a line through the tracker does that mean they are blocked?
Thanks
Hi J,
It sure does!
Why is the new popup interface less functional than the old one? Where is my whitelist site button? Where is the script list?
Why oh why would you REMOVE functionality?
Hi WhiteZero,
Thanks for using Ghostery. We haven’t removed any functionality, we’ve just changed the menu to look the way our other extensions look, and work like they do to. The “Whitelist site” button has just been replaced with the “Don’t block on…” link toggle. Blocking is enabled by selecting or deselecting trackers. To get to the blocking menu, you can click “Blocking options” in the main dropdown panel.
To see source URLs for trackers, check off “Show bug script sources (in the browser popup)” on Ghostery’s options page under the Advanced tab.
To access the “View Script Source” option, click one of these source URLs.
To toggle site whitelisting, click “Edit Blocking Options” and then click “Don’t Block on …”/”Start Blocking on …”
I love you guys! Keep up the great work.
I love Ghostery but find the new interface to be MUCH less intuitive than the old one– there doesn’t seem to be a “click this to start blocking” option anywhere, so whenever I try to block something I end up going through a whole runaround where I start blocking and stop blocking and accidentally whitelist the site and have to unwhitelist it &c&c… some clear and obviously-labeled directions would be helpful!
Hi Corinne,
Please see https://getsatisfaction.com/ghostery/topics/where_is_my_block_now_option
you understand the true users of internet, thank you for your awesome work sir
Bad ass!
this thing is brilliant,well done sir
hey i just would like to say thank you for this great add-on .and i’m just tickle purple about it ! ;D
Thanks Joe! Happy browsing!
GOOD job Ghostery. Enlightening on what is out there
Personally, I prefer the old panel to the Chrome-like one. It’s neater and easier to read. Plus, with the new one, I had a lot of problems just getting the panel to pop-up (i.e. clicking the toolbar button does nothing). Switch to a different tab and suddenly it works. This happened quite frequently. When I switched back to the original panel; no problems at all.
Nevertheless, I forgot to say it is a sensational add-on. Although I’m sure you already know that!
I’m locked on with all the hits!!
I really like this add-ons for Firefox and its work, thanks Ghoestery for the support
I am new to this add-on. Right now I am not able to support this add-on with $$ as I am a full-time student as well as unemployed. I will send the reports to HQ for you. Keep up the good work.
Dear Ghostery team,
I just want to say thank you for the work you are doing here. I can’t claim to fully understand what ghostery does technically but using it gives me a sense of redeeming “internet user dignity and privacy.” To me this is golden in what is seeming to be a more and more hostile and shady internet. Your work means a lot to me!
how do yo remove Ghostery from the addins bar? I just like the ghost icon in the navigation bar. thanks!
Greetings!
You can turn it off in the advanced tab of the options menu under display options.
thank you! all ok with FF18 and Ghostery2.8.4
but I can’t trigger the Advanced menu with FF21 and Ghostery2.8.4, it will just stay on “General”