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.
