I’m running Firefox (+Windows7) and noticed that beginning with release 50.1.0, the browser and browser navigation slowed considerably. I started digging around looking for the cause and discovered that Ghostery had been disabled on my browser. Digging further I learned that Ghostery had been bought out by a German ad agency. Reading recent user comments indicated that the buyout coincided with the browser slowdown.
A few of the comments indicated that Ghostery is now being used to spy on you. I didn’t dig any further, opting to uninstall Ghostery instead. While I cannot confirm that Ghostery was the cause of my browser slowdown or that they are spying on users, I re-booted the computer after this and Firefox is back to its usual snappy self with no sluggishness.
Perhaps admins ad revenue will increase a bit now that Ghostery has been assimilated by the DarkSide and people stop using it? If anyone knows of a good add-on similar to Ghostery for Firefox please share in the comments below.
You might consider a different browser such as SeaMonkey (which has integrated e-mail if you want to use it).
Another Mozilla build, as is Firefox, but doesn’t seem to get the problems I hear Firefox gets.
Lots of add on stuff for it, many working on both platforms.
IS….I am running Firefox on Win 10. I checked my Add-ons, and Plug-ins; I also checked Control Panel under Uninstall Programs and could not locate Ghostery.
Am I OK?
Sorry for the late response but I’m busy in Boise with family.
I’m running Win7 so I can’t say for sure. The bigger point is that Ghostery was sold to big corporate interests and many claim the corporate interests are using it to spy on you. YMMV.
I run noscript on FF. Allows you to enable or disable certain sites. It’s also quite interesting to see how many “regular” websites have google, facebook, etc scripting in place to monitor your every move.
TC….just installed noscript; try it out after restart.
Here is a relevant article for more information:
http://www.cio.com/article/3170571/privacy/browser-privacy-extension-ghostery-is-moving-to-germany.html
https://www.eff.org/privacybadger
I’ll try that also – I’ll uninstall Adblock Plus first).
Reading the questions on that linked page, it looks good.
Thanks, Anon! EFF.org is a good place to start.
Ghostery 7.1.3.1 on Firefox 50.0.1 on ubuntu linux 16.04 works great.
Bet its MS-Windows itself, bet its FUBAR for the 39th time in the last 16 weeks.
Nearly all PC problems go away forever when you stop using ms-windows.
So does nearly all functional software.
Plenty of good open source software for linux,you want to make it easier for your privacy to ne invaded,by all means use windows.
Yeah, as long as you what the software allows you to do instead of what you want to do.
Know of anything that will run databases running in SQL (specifically MySQL) without losing most of it’s functionality, or anything that can actually handle complex scheduling?
For that matter, even simple utilities that are occasionally needed to check functions are almost impossible to find, install and run then try to actually fully remove from the system without leaving ghosts everywhere. I lost significant capacity on a laptop hard drive that cannot be recovered when I formatted it to run Linux, almost had to trash the drive as useless for anything else afterward.
Last time I tried Linux, it seemed like it’s in a teenage computer geek development stage, not something that can actually be put to full use.
That’s why Windows, followed by the Apple stuff, dominates the OS market.
Despite the official sounding technical jargon you puked all over my screen , you sir , are full of shit.
Also running Ghostery 7.1.3.1 but with Firefox 51.0.1, and AdBlock Plus as well. No issues.
Check your Ghostery advanced settings and be sure block all is checked.
Mine must have been reset during an upgrade and pages were slow to load.
Checked block all and seems normal again.
Something interesting I learned recently is that Opera is much faster than Firefox. It doesn’t work for on all websites, but enough that it’s worth using. I use ad-block to keep the crap off my page.
I use Opera for streaming video (Netflix, etc.) and it works quite well for that, better than Firefox IMO.
It has too many Google things embedded in it for me to trust it for anything else and I don’t see any easy way to get rid of or disable them without worrying about new stuff getting put back in.
I thought I received a message from ghostery saying Mozilla had bought them?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostery
Indentures Servant
You fool! Instead of relying on Ghostery …. why don’t you instead rely on the Holy Ghost ??
It is because you are stiff necked and a serial masturbater. Return to God before you die and roast in hell forever.
What’s wrong with masturbating cereal? Sure, it gets soggy, but the effort is appreciated.
I use FF and it has become a memory hog. I think it’s in the last 6 months that I’ve noticed how slow its gotten on both my work and personal boxes. I’ve taken to using the Clean Ram function on one of my security/maintenance programs to clear some of the trash and occasionally I restart the browser. It’s obvious it’s getting bad when double-clicking on something doesn’t work. FF was great, but I think the previous version was better.
I’ve heard that k meleon is a great browser based on the mozilla engine but I’ve not looked into it further as I’m bogged down with family right now.
Palemoon?