What is the biggest web nuisance that bothers you every time you go online? Well, three items that top the list for most of the users are trackers, ads, and viruses. Though it is difficult to completely eliminate them, you can definitely minimize their effect on your browsing by using these free security add-ons.
Known as Ghostery, Adblock Plus, and Web of Trust, these security add-ons for Firefox, Google Chrome, and Internet Explorer help protect Internet privacy by stopping trackers, blocking ads, and rating the safety of the URLs before you click on them. Let’s take a closer look at each of them:
Ghostery
Ghostery is a security add-on that sees the ‘invisible web’ and helps you detect trackers, web bugs, beacons, and pixels on websites you browse. It also informs you of the behavioral data providers, ad networks, and web publishers to prevent them from tracking your web activities. It also gives you an opportunity to learn more about each company, know their privacy policies, as well as their opt-out options. Engineered for privacy, it allows you to block script from companies that you don’t trust, delete local shared objects, and block images and iframes. With these handful of features, Ghostery puts your web privacy back in your hands.
Adblock Plus
Are you fed up of annoying ads and banners that pop-up every time you visit a web page? Apart from being annoying and detrimental to user experience, these ads and banners, when misused, can create a serious security havoc by helping hackers and spammers track your online activities. Adblock Plus, an open-source content filtering and ad blocking security add-on, changes the way you view the web. It blocks all the annoying ads – video ads on YouTube, Facebook ads, pop-ups, as well as flashy banners – from showing up on your web page. It disables malware domains to completely secure your browser from being hijacked. Not just this, it also speeds up your browsing experience.
Web of Trust
Nearly all web malware trick you into clicking what looks like a completely trustworthy link. Web of Trust (WOT), a free security add-on, places rating next to every link both in the search results as well as on the pages that you open, indicating their safety level. Based on the feedback from other users, it shows one of the six reliability icons for a particular URL: Excellent, Good, Unsatisfactory, Poor, Very Poor, and No Rating. You can also click on the icon to add your own reliability rating.
Have you powered up your browser with these security add-ons? Which is the one security add-on you trust the most? If you’ve got a favorite, plug it in the comments section below and help others fix their security flaws.
Don’t know how to secure your browser from latest security threats? Get in touch with our expert technicians for complete assistance.
