TechRadar Verdict
Privacy Badger is one of the best tools for blocking ads and website trackers.
It does an excellent job of protecting your privacy at no cost.
Free to use
Prevents third-party monitoring
User-friendly interface
It doesnt block some ad types, e.g., YouTube.
Ads can disrupt the browsing experience, but theres a solution to this dilemma.
Privacy Badger is run by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a prominent American digital rights group.
The EFF offers Privacy Badger for free as part of its mission to promote digital privacy.
Alternatively, you might search for Privacy Badger directly on your browsers extension store.
For this review, we first tested Privacy Badger on the Chrome surfing app.
Downloading the software took less than a minute, and we got the work.
Privacy Badger is unique because it doesnt block ads based on domain lists like most other tools.
Instead, it employs algorithms to study your browsing activity and automatically discover trackers based on their behaviour.
This method enables Privacy Badger to detect and block trackers that typical ad-blockers cant find.
This software focuses more on blocking web trackers than ad-blocking even though it performs both jobs effectively.
Ads are just one part of tracking; Privacy Badger protects you from additional forms.
It also activates the Do Not Track signal instructing websites not to track your browsing activity.
If any website ignores this signal, Privacy Badger’s algorithms can discover and block them.
This software is good at detecting sneaky trackers that similar tools might find difficult to discover.
It only works directly on a desktop web client or the Android Firefox web client.
To recap, Privacy Badger doesn’t focus directly on ads.
Instead, it blocks the tracking aspects, which accounts for 99% of today’s advertising issues anyway.
Some types of ads can slip through, but they’re usually the non-intrusive types.
Privacy Badger: Interface and In-Use
Privacy Badger has a simple interface thats easy to navigate.
Once the extension is installed, it automatically starts detecting and blocking trackers.
it’s possible for you to also tweak the extensions configs to suit your needs better.
The Privacy Badger extension gives you a live view of the trackers it has detected and blocked.
This way, you could easily verify that the tool is performing its job.
Theres no designated support personnel to contact if things go wrong.
However, theres a thriving online community of privacy-focused users on sites like Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook.
Many skilled developers are willing to contribute their expertise because Privacy Badger gives them something valuable for free.
Privacy Badger: The Competition
Theres no shortage of competition when it comes to ad-blocking tools.
Privacy Badger competes with many well-known tools, such asAdLockandAdGuard.
However, Privacy Badger lacks advanced customer support and a mobile app like AdLock and AdGuard.
With Privacy Badger, youre trading some convenience to use a free tool.
This free tool goes a long way in making your browsing experience safe and convenient.
Its not perfect at blocking all types of ads, but it works 99% of the time.