Disconnect is a partly
open source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
browser extension and mobile app designed to stop non-consensual third party trackers,
[ and providing private web search and private web browsing. On mobile, it is available for Android and iPhone. It was developed by Brian Kennish and Casey Oppenheim. ''Disconnect-Search'' had once been the default search engine of the security-focused ]Tor Browser
Tor, short for The Onion Router, is free and open-source software for enabling anonymous communication. It directs Internet traffic through a free, worldwide, volunteer overlay network, consisting of more than seven thousand relays, to con ...
, which now uses DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo (DDG) is an internet search engine that emphasizes protecting searchers' privacy and avoiding the filter bubble of personalized search results. DuckDuckGo does not show search results from content farms. It uses various APIs of ...
.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet c ...
compared the app to its own Privacy Badger browser plugin.Google Play Store
Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating sys ...
five days after its release in late August 2014. Google cited a violation of its Terms of Service which prohibit developers from using its store "to distribute apps that interfere with or disrupt the services of any third party".[Google Bans Disconnect.me App From Play Store Based On Vague Guidelines] This, however, attracted criticism from parties such as EFF (and Disconnect itself) which saw this app as privacy-friendly, and argue that Google's motivations are primarily based on the fact that this app interferes with ad-based revenue models of numerous companies, including Google itself.
See also
* Ad blocking
Ad blocking or ad filtering is a software capability for blocking or altering online advertising in a web browser, an application or a network. This may be done using browser extensions or other methods.
Technologies and native countermeasures ...
* Ad tracking
Ad tracking, also known as post-testing or ad effectiveness tracking, is in-market research that monitors a brand’s performance including brand and advertising awareness, product trial and usage, and attitudes about the brand versus their comp ...
* Web beacon
A web beaconAlso called web bug, tracking bug, tag, web tag, page tag, tracking pixel, pixel tag, 1×1 GIF, or clear GIF. is a technique used on web pages and email to unobtrusively (usually invisibly) allow checking that a user has accessed s ...
* Website visitor tracking
Web tracking is the practice by which operators of websites and third parties collect, store and share information about visitors’ activities on the World Wide Web. Analysis of a user's behaviour may be used to provide content that enables the ...
References
External links
*
2014 software
Android (operating system) software
Online advertising
Advertising-free media
Internet privacy software
IOS software
Software using the GPL license
Free Firefox WebExtensions
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