# NoTrack, anti-tracking software, opinion?

## The Doctor

So I was bouncing around YouTube recently and I came across quidsup's channel and a project he is working on which is designed to directly block websites that attempt to track users. Here is his video and the projects  github.

So I am rather curious what everyone thinks. Is this a good concept? A good project? Should we bring it to Gentoo?

----------

## Syl20

Well... So much work to, finally, just setup an equivalent of a /etc/hosts file like these provided, for example, here. Not sure it's really useful.

----------

## MarioCorleone

Not sure what the difference is between this and Ghosrty add-on for FF

----------

## The Doctor

 *mario18 wrote:*   

> Not sure what the difference is between this and Ghosrty add-on for FF

 Well, I didn't even know Ghostery existed so thanks for that. It is also available for chrome/chromium. I've been tightening up my browsing security without really knowing too much about what I'm doing so I'm kind of blind to what I don't know. 

The reason I find NoTrack to be an interesting project is because 1) it is open source and 2) I didn't know of any software that achieves the same thing. It also doesn't look like it would be too hard to write an ebuild for.

----------

## Hu

I prefer using Policeman to restrict cross-site resource embedding.  This requires more manual tuning, but also allows you to block content based on both the content server and the server which provided the main document.  For general browser security, I also recommend NoScript to disallow running Javascript except on pages where you have approved it.  Beware that some badly written sites break when their Javascript is not allowed to execute.

----------

## lexflex

 *mario18 wrote:*   

> Not sure what the difference is between this and Ghosrty add-on for FF

 

I guess the main advantage would be that you can run it an a (/ as a) seperate dns-server so you can also block ads on other devices.

I run a similar solution on my openwrt-router so it also blocks ads for my phones, tablets, etc.

Alex.

----------

## EmaRsk

I'd just add my recommendations: uBlock Origin and uMatrix. I also use Privacy Badger but to be honest I think it's probably redundant.

----------

## Syl20

 *The Doctor wrote:*   

> Well, I didn't even know Ghostery existed so thanks for that. 
> 
> (snip)
> 
> The reason I find NoTrack to be an interesting project is because 1) it is open source

 

That's the main problem with Ghostery : it's a closed-source add-on, and it belongs to a company which "makes money from selling page visit, blocking and advertising statistics to corporations globally". Not sure it's the best choice to keep your private life... private.

uBlock Origin is open-source, very light, and is able to replace Adblock Plus and Ghostery.

----------

