Ghostery vs Privoxy
Ghostery
ghostery.comPrivoxy
privoxy.orgSide by side
| Figure | Ghostery | Privoxy |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 2 |
| Spec score · Ad blockers | 9.1 (#3) | 8.7 (#9) |
| Ad blocking | The extension blocks ads including banners, video ads, pop-ups, and sponsored content. | Privoxy blocks advertisements and can remove banners and other page annoyances. |
| Browser support | The maker lists Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, Opera, and Brave as supported browsers. | multiple-browsers |
| Cookie Management | Never-Consent rejects tracking cookies and sends opt-out signals. | The user manual lists cookie management as a core capability. |
| Device coverage | desktop-and-mobile | desktop |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Support | Users can consult the FAQs or contact Ghostery support at [email protected]. | Users can discuss issues on the Privoxy users mailing list, where developers also participate. |
| What it does | Ghostery combines ad blocking, tracker protection, cookie consent handling, and tracker transparency tools. | Privoxy is a non-caching web proxy that filters traffic to improve privacy, modify web pages and HTTP headers, control access, and remove advertisements. |
Plans
In their own words
Ghostery
Ghostery is a free, open-source browser extension combining ad blocking, tracker protection, cookie-consent handling, and tracker information tools. It blocks banners, video ads, pop-ups, and sponsored content. The Tracker Panel displays trackers it identifies and neutralizes, while WhoTracks.Me provides information about tracking activity and companies. Ghostery says its protection replaces personal identifiers with random values. Never-Consent rejects tracking cookies and sends opt-out signals on supported sites. Supported browsers include Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera, Safari, and Brave, and users can install the extension on as many devices as they like. On iOS and iPadOS, it offers Safari protection; on Android, it supports Edge and Firefox. Chrome on Android is unavailable because Chrome does not allow extensions there. Ghostery says extension telemetry is non-personal, with additional telemetry sent if users opt in. For phishing and malware protection, it says it sends a partial URL checksum to its backend rather than the full URL. Private Search is in closed beta.
Privoxy
Privoxy is free, non-caching web proxy software for privacy controls, access rules, and changes to HTTP headers and web pages. It can modify page text, remove banners and web bugs, filter HTML annoyances, and inspect HTTPS requests and responses. A browser-based configuration and control utility includes rule tracing and remote toggling, and Privoxy can be chained with other proxies. It can serve multiple clients across a network or as a LAN gateway. The software runs on Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, Haiku, BSD variants, Solaris, and other Unix systems. It is licensed under the GNU GPL version 2 or later, with a free plan listed at free. A basic configuration is included with a new installation, but many advanced features need to be enabled. Privoxy handles HTTP and HTTPS proxying; it does not handle FTP, SMTP, instant messaging, IRC, or ICQ. It is not designed as a malware-removal tool, and the default setup does not filter malware. The project says it lacks trusted build infrastructure; individual project members or external contributors build and upload binary packages.