Month: July 2023
Sennheiser’s plush and comfy Momentum 4 headphones are $120 off
They may not have the cool old-school looks of their predecessor, but the Momentum 4 Wireless make up for it with amazing battery life and a comfy fit. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
Sennheiser’s Momentum 4 Wireless headphones in white are selling for an excellent low price of $259.95 ($120 off) at Amazon. If you were partial to the last-gen version’s touch of vintage styling, that’s sadly no longer present on the current model, but these noise-canceling cans traded that for some extra-long battery life of up to 60 hours and much-improved comfort (so you can actually use it for those marathon sessions with less chance of fatigue).
If white isn’t your thing, the black version is also on sale at Amazon for a still-pretty-good price of $284.95 ($95 off). Either way, the Momentum 4 are a great set of wireless headphones, especially if you don’t want to rely on frequent charging.
Read our review of the Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless.
Belkin’s BoostCharge Pro with MagSafe has been hanging on at its exceptional deal price of $19.99 ($30 off) at Amazon. It’s our top pick of MagSafe charging pucks thanks to its fast 15W wireless charging, lengthy 6.6-foot USB-C cable, and handy little kickstand.
However, if you’re partial to buying first-party Apple accessories instead of third-parties, Apple’s own MagSafe Charger is on sale for $28.99 (about $10 off) at Woot. This wireless puck may not be our favorite because we feel that 1m cable is just too short for many applications, but if you can look over that, then you get a very compact charger that packs quite discreetly.
The Bose SoundLink Flex, our favorite Bluetooth speaker, is selling for $129 ($20 off) in multiple colors at Amazon. It offers excellent sound in a small, waterproof package with a rugged design. One of the reasons the Flex took our top spot for all Bluetooth speakers is its surprisingly good bass — which is especially impressive when you consider its size and the fact that it doesn’t get all muddied up.
It’s been a hot summer for many of us, and if you’re keeping cool at a pool party or other social gatherings, the Bose is a handy speaker to have. It’s IP67-rated for water and dust resistance, and it can keep the party going for up to 12 hours on a charge. Plus, you can stereo-pair it with a second if you ever decide to get two.
Sony’s PlayStation 5 may be outselling Microsoft’s Xbox Series X by nearly twofold, but one thing Xbox has going for it right now is a sweet deal. The Xbox Series X is selling for $449.99 ($50 off its standalone price) at Dell, and it includes a copy of Forza Horizon 5 — a total savings of $110 compared to buying it all at full price.
Even if racing games aren’t your jam, $50 off Microsoft’s flagship console doesn’t happen that frequently. And to be fair, Forza Horizon 5 is a pretty approachable open-world arcade racer — it even has a rewind function to undo a botched turn — that looks great in 4K on the Series X. While Forza runs at 60fps and there have been some recent controversies over Xbox games shipping with 30fps performance, the Series X is capable of super-smooth 120fps gameplay in supported titles.
Read our review of the Xbox Series X.
Some more Friday deals that are cooking:
The standard Apple Watch sport band in red (size medium / large) for 41mm watches is on sale for just $14.37 (about $35 off) at Amazon.
The latest CalDigit TS4 may be the king of Thunderbolt docks, but the last-gen CalDigit TS3 Plus is much cheaper at $199.95 ($100 off when you click the on-page coupon) at Amazon. It’s got a plethora of Thunderbolt 3, USB-C, and USB-A ports, along with ethernet, a fast UHS-II SD card slot, and DisplayPort for video-out.
Lexar’s 512GB microSD card is on sale for just $39.49 (about $20 off) at Amazon. That’s a ton of added storage for a Nintendo Switch or Steam Deck for a very low price. Think of all the games you can fit.
The Zendure SuperTank Pro is on sale for $172.49 (about $58 off) at Amazon when you click the on-page coupon. The beefy 26,800mAh power bank can output up to 100W to four devices, with a small display to show just how much juice each device is getting.
They may not have the cool old-school looks of their predecessor, but the Momentum 4 Wireless make up for it with amazing battery life and a comfy fit. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
Sennheiser’s Momentum 4 Wireless headphones in white are selling for an excellent low price of $259.95 ($120 off) at Amazon. If you were partial to the last-gen version’s touch of vintage styling, that’s sadly no longer present on the current model, but these noise-canceling cans traded that for some extra-long battery life of up to 60 hours and much-improved comfort (so you can actually use it for those marathon sessions with less chance of fatigue).
If white isn’t your thing, the black version is also on sale at Amazon for a still-pretty-good price of $284.95 ($95 off). Either way, the Momentum 4 are a great set of wireless headphones, especially if you don’t want to rely on frequent charging.
Read our review of the Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless.
Belkin’s BoostCharge Pro with MagSafe has been hanging on at its exceptional deal price of $19.99 ($30 off) at Amazon. It’s our top pick of MagSafe charging pucks thanks to its fast 15W wireless charging, lengthy 6.6-foot USB-C cable, and handy little kickstand.
However, if you’re partial to buying first-party Apple accessories instead of third-parties, Apple’s own MagSafe Charger is on sale for $28.99 (about $10 off) at Woot. This wireless puck may not be our favorite because we feel that 1m cable is just too short for many applications, but if you can look over that, then you get a very compact charger that packs quite discreetly.
The Bose SoundLink Flex, our favorite Bluetooth speaker, is selling for $129 ($20 off) in multiple colors at Amazon. It offers excellent sound in a small, waterproof package with a rugged design. One of the reasons the Flex took our top spot for all Bluetooth speakers is its surprisingly good bass — which is especially impressive when you consider its size and the fact that it doesn’t get all muddied up.
It’s been a hot summer for many of us, and if you’re keeping cool at a pool party or other social gatherings, the Bose is a handy speaker to have. It’s IP67-rated for water and dust resistance, and it can keep the party going for up to 12 hours on a charge. Plus, you can stereo-pair it with a second if you ever decide to get two.
Sony’s PlayStation 5 may be outselling Microsoft’s Xbox Series X by nearly twofold, but one thing Xbox has going for it right now is a sweet deal. The Xbox Series X is selling for $449.99 ($50 off its standalone price) at Dell, and it includes a copy of Forza Horizon 5 — a total savings of $110 compared to buying it all at full price.
Even if racing games aren’t your jam, $50 off Microsoft’s flagship console doesn’t happen that frequently. And to be fair, Forza Horizon 5 is a pretty approachable open-world arcade racer — it even has a rewind function to undo a botched turn — that looks great in 4K on the Series X. While Forza runs at 60fps and there have been some recent controversies over Xbox games shipping with 30fps performance, the Series X is capable of super-smooth 120fps gameplay in supported titles.
Read our review of the Xbox Series X.
Some more Friday deals that are cooking:
The standard Apple Watch sport band in red (size medium / large) for 41mm watches is on sale for just $14.37 (about $35 off) at Amazon.
The latest CalDigit TS4 may be the king of Thunderbolt docks, but the last-gen CalDigit TS3 Plus is much cheaper at $199.95 ($100 off when you click the on-page coupon) at Amazon. It’s got a plethora of Thunderbolt 3, USB-C, and USB-A ports, along with ethernet, a fast UHS-II SD card slot, and DisplayPort for video-out.
Lexar’s 512GB microSD card is on sale for just $39.49 (about $20 off) at Amazon. That’s a ton of added storage for a Nintendo Switch or Steam Deck for a very low price. Think of all the games you can fit.
The Zendure SuperTank Pro is on sale for $172.49 (about $58 off) at Amazon when you click the on-page coupon. The beefy 26,800mAh power bank can output up to 100W to four devices, with a small display to show just how much juice each device is getting.
Generative AI could undermine upcoming elections in US and India, startup warns
AI image generators could undermine upcoming elections in the world’s biggest democracies, according to new research Logically, a British fact-checking startup, investigated AI’s capacity to produce fake images about elections in India, the US, and the UK. Each of these countries will soon go to the ballot box. The company tested three popular generative AI systems: Midjourney, DALL-E 2, and Stable Diffusion. All of them have content moderation of some form, but the parameters are unclear. Logically explored how these platforms could support disinformation campaigns. This included testing narratives around a “stolen election” in the US, migrants “flooding” into the…This story continues at The Next Web
AI image generators could undermine upcoming elections in the world’s biggest democracies, according to new research Logically, a British fact-checking startup, investigated AI’s capacity to produce fake images about elections in India, the US, and the UK. Each of these countries will soon go to the ballot box. The company tested three popular generative AI systems: Midjourney, DALL-E 2, and Stable Diffusion. All of them have content moderation of some form, but the parameters are unclear. Logically explored how these platforms could support disinformation campaigns. This included testing narratives around a “stolen election” in the US, migrants “flooding” into the…
This story continues at The Next Web
The MacRumors Show: Our Plan to Fix Apple’s Product Lines
On this week’s episode of The MacRumors Show, we talk through how we would make changes to Apple’s product lines in an attempt to make them simpler and more consumer-friendly.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos
Today, Apple sells eight iPhone models, six iPads, six MacBooks, four desktop Macs, two external displays, and four sets of AirPods. Some product ranges, such as the iPad lineup, have been subject to particular criticism in recent years for being overwhelming and confusing for average consumers. We discuss how Apple could simplify its offerings by presenting a clearer selection of form-factors, product names, and price points. Let us know what changes you would make to the structure of Apple’s product lines in the comments.
Listen to The MacRumors Show in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Castro, Google Podcasts, or your preferred podcasts app. You can also copy our RSS feed directly into your podcast player. Watch a video version of the show on the MacRumors YouTube channel.
If you haven’t already listened to the previous episode of The MacRumors Show, catch up with our discussion on some of the latest major rumors about Apple’s upcoming iPhone, iPad, and Mac models.
Subscribe to The MacRumors Show for more episodes, where we discuss some of the topical news breaking here on MacRumors, often joined by exciting guests like Andru Edwards, Kevin Nether, Arnold Kim, Ben Sullins, Mark Gurman, Marcus Kane, Christopher Lawley, Frank McShan, David Lewis, Tyler Stalman, Jon Prosser, Sam Kohl, Quinn Nelson, John Gruber, Federico Viticci, Sara Dietschy, Luke Miani, Thomas Frank, Jonathan Morrison, iJustine, Ross Young, Ian Zelbo, Jon Rettinger, and Rene Ritchie. You can also head over to The MacRumors Show forum thread to engage with us directly. Remember to rate and review the show, and let us know what subjects you would like the podcast to cover in the future.Tag: The MacRumors ShowThis article, “The MacRumors Show: Our Plan to Fix Apple’s Product Lines” first appeared on MacRumors.comDiscuss this article in our forums
On this week’s episode of The MacRumors Show, we talk through how we would make changes to Apple’s product lines in an attempt to make them simpler and more consumer-friendly.
Today, Apple sells eight iPhone models, six iPads, six MacBooks, four desktop Macs, two external displays, and four sets of AirPods. Some product ranges, such as the iPad lineup, have been subject to particular criticism in recent years for being overwhelming and confusing for average consumers. We discuss how Apple could simplify its offerings by presenting a clearer selection of form-factors, product names, and price points. Let us know what changes you would make to the structure of Apple’s product lines in the comments.
Listen to The MacRumors Show in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Castro, Google Podcasts, or your preferred podcasts app. You can also copy our RSS feed directly into your podcast player. Watch a video version of the show on the MacRumors YouTube channel.
If you haven’t already listened to the previous episode of The MacRumors Show, catch up with our discussion on some of the latest major rumors about Apple’s upcoming iPhone, iPad, and Mac models.
Subscribe to The MacRumors Show for more episodes, where we discuss some of the topical news breaking here on MacRumors, often joined by exciting guests like Andru Edwards, Kevin Nether, Arnold Kim, Ben Sullins, Mark Gurman, Marcus Kane, Christopher Lawley, Frank McShan, David Lewis, Tyler Stalman, Jon Prosser, Sam Kohl, Quinn Nelson, John Gruber, Federico Viticci, Sara Dietschy, Luke Miani, Thomas Frank, Jonathan Morrison, iJustine, Ross Young, Ian Zelbo, Jon Rettinger, and Rene Ritchie. You can also head over to The MacRumors Show forum thread to engage with us directly. Remember to rate and review the show, and let us know what subjects you would like the podcast to cover in the future.
This article, “The MacRumors Show: Our Plan to Fix Apple’s Product Lines” first appeared on MacRumors.com
Discuss this article in our forums
Tech layoffs: cybersecurity firm behind popular VPN services cuts around 200 staff
Kape Technologies, the firm behind ExpressVPN and other big VPN names, is reported to have laid off around 200 employees. Here’s what we know so far.
After Twitter, Meta, Google, and other Big Tech companies, now it’s Kape Technologies’ turn to enter the ring of tech layoffs. The popular cybersecurity company behind some of the best VPN services around has reportedly laid off around 200 employees across different departments.
Some of those departments included ExpressVPN, Private Internet Access (PIA), and CyberGhost. No one was safe, either, with high-level executives joining the ranks of those affected, and big names like Dan Gericke walking away from the business.
We’re still waiting for responses from the providers and people involved so we can better map what’s happening. In the meantime, though, it’s impossible not to wonder whether these events will impact the security of the virtual private network (VPN) services alongside the obvious discomfort of, now former, employees.
Kape Technologies layoffs: what we know so far
At the time of writing, neither Kape nor the VPN providers involved haven’t released any official announcements. Yet, LinkedIn is full of posts from former and current employees talking about the layoffs. The distinguished “Open to work” banner circles the profile picture of many of those who are likely to have been caught in the crossfire.
Among words of encouragement, praising the hard work of ex-colleagues, some (even across higher roles) took the decision to leave the company altogether in the face of what was happening.
“As many of you may know, Kape Technologies (which includes ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, and PIA VPN brands) was taken private on June 1st and this week decided to retrench about 30% of their global workforce,” reads a post written by Dan G. (alias Dan Gericke) now ex-CTO at Express.
“I decided to exit along with my many amazing colleagues that were terminated and am officially announcing my departure as CTO of ExpressVPN and the Kape Privacy Division.”
Other allegedly former employees have been taking advantage of the anonymity granted by Reddit to express their discontent on how Kape’s restructuring process seems to have been handled, and I have even received anonymous emails from people looking to express their concerns.
Kape Technologies lays off staff from r/Layoffs
As already mentioned, we are closely monitoring the situation and waiting for responses from the parties involved. We are looking to keep updating this page as new information comes in, so we can show the truth of the situation.
What’s certain now is that these layoffs add to an already worrying scenario in today’s tech sector that keeps cutting its workforce.
Be sure to stay tuned as the story develops.
Don’t hate on Ford’s big, gas-guzzling trucks, because they’re funding its electric future
Image: Getty
Ford’s electric future is being paid for by giant, gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs.
That fact came into stark relief this week during the company’s second quarter earnings report, in which the Blue Oval reported losing $1.1 billion before interest and taxes on its EV business, more than twice as much it lost over the same period last year.
Compare that to Ford’s profits in the sale of gas and hybrid trucks and SUVs: $2.3 billion before interest and taxes. Commercial vehicle sales also posted a healthy profit of $2.4 billion for the quarter.
Ford lost $1.1 billion on its EV business this quarter
It’s been over a year since Ford split its business into two separate entities — one focused on electric vehicles called Ford Model e, and the other on gas-powered ones called Ford Blue.
At the time, Ford CEO Jim Farley framed it as a necessary move that will help it better compete with companies like Tesla that have the luxury of focusing on only one type of vehicle technology. He also noted that, for now and likely years to come, the profitable Ford Blue side of the business would be helping provide the cash to help pay for the Ford Model e side of the business.
Making electric vehicles is expensive. In addition to upgrading Ford’s existing factories, the company is also constructing several new facilities: a $3.5 billion battery facility in Marshall, Michigan; two additional battery factories in Kentucky; and a mega-campus vehicle assembly plant in Tennessee, which combined will cost $11.4 billion (a cost that Ford is sharing with SK Innovation).
And for Ford, the costs keep mounting. The company now expects to lose a total of $4.5 billion on its EV business for the entire year of 2023, up from a previous prediction of $3 billion in losses.
“While the shift to EVs is unquestionably underway, the last few weeks have shown us the adoption by early, majority customers will be a little slower than expected,” Ford’s chief financial officer, John Lawler, said on a call with investors.
Making electric vehicles is expensive
Slower, yes, but Ford is also hurting its EV business with repeated price cuts as it continues to wage a price war with Tesla. Also, production has been slower than expected, with temporary factory shutdowns for upgrades eating into the company’s ability to churn out enough EVs. Ford now expects to make 600,000 EVs by the end of 2024, a figure the company previously expected to hit by the end of this year. And demand is slowing, as new EVs sit on dealer lots unsold.
All of which is to say, there’s a long road ahead for Ford’s shift to electric vehicles. The company’s decision to jump aboard Tesla’s EV charging bandwagon and adopt the NACS (North American Charging Standard) for its future lineup may help assuage customers who were holding off on a purchase because of charging anxiety. And new products — the company currently only has two EVs, the Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning — will attract new car buyers as well.
But in the meantime, Ford will need to continue to sell big gas-guzzlers that pollute communities and contribute to our increasingly warming planet in order to generate enough revenue that it can then turn around and funnel into producing more zero-emission vehicles. It’s the sad truth of the auto industry.
Image: Getty
Ford’s electric future is being paid for by giant, gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs.
That fact came into stark relief this week during the company’s second quarter earnings report, in which the Blue Oval reported losing $1.1 billion before interest and taxes on its EV business, more than twice as much it lost over the same period last year.
Compare that to Ford’s profits in the sale of gas and hybrid trucks and SUVs: $2.3 billion before interest and taxes. Commercial vehicle sales also posted a healthy profit of $2.4 billion for the quarter.
It’s been over a year since Ford split its business into two separate entities — one focused on electric vehicles called Ford Model e, and the other on gas-powered ones called Ford Blue.
At the time, Ford CEO Jim Farley framed it as a necessary move that will help it better compete with companies like Tesla that have the luxury of focusing on only one type of vehicle technology. He also noted that, for now and likely years to come, the profitable Ford Blue side of the business would be helping provide the cash to help pay for the Ford Model e side of the business.
Making electric vehicles is expensive. In addition to upgrading Ford’s existing factories, the company is also constructing several new facilities: a $3.5 billion battery facility in Marshall, Michigan; two additional battery factories in Kentucky; and a mega-campus vehicle assembly plant in Tennessee, which combined will cost $11.4 billion (a cost that Ford is sharing with SK Innovation).
And for Ford, the costs keep mounting. The company now expects to lose a total of $4.5 billion on its EV business for the entire year of 2023, up from a previous prediction of $3 billion in losses.
“While the shift to EVs is unquestionably underway, the last few weeks have shown us the adoption by early, majority customers will be a little slower than expected,” Ford’s chief financial officer, John Lawler, said on a call with investors.
Slower, yes, but Ford is also hurting its EV business with repeated price cuts as it continues to wage a price war with Tesla. Also, production has been slower than expected, with temporary factory shutdowns for upgrades eating into the company’s ability to churn out enough EVs. Ford now expects to make 600,000 EVs by the end of 2024, a figure the company previously expected to hit by the end of this year. And demand is slowing, as new EVs sit on dealer lots unsold.
All of which is to say, there’s a long road ahead for Ford’s shift to electric vehicles. The company’s decision to jump aboard Tesla’s EV charging bandwagon and adopt the NACS (North American Charging Standard) for its future lineup may help assuage customers who were holding off on a purchase because of charging anxiety. And new products — the company currently only has two EVs, the Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning — will attract new car buyers as well.
But in the meantime, Ford will need to continue to sell big gas-guzzlers that pollute communities and contribute to our increasingly warming planet in order to generate enough revenue that it can then turn around and funnel into producing more zero-emission vehicles. It’s the sad truth of the auto industry.
What makes everyone so sure SAFE rounds are founder-friendly?
While SAFEs are generally considered founder friendly, when you get into the details it’s less clear why they would be over priced rounds.
SAFEs, simple agreements for future equity, have long been touted as a founder-friendly structure for signing venture deals. But is it really fair to call them that?
TechCrunch+ recently surveyed a handful of VCs and founders about how they’re feeling about SAFE rounds in this tougher fundraising market, especially now that power has largely shifted back to investors. We found that while both groups championed the deal structure at the earliest stages and for capital raises in between formal rounds, founders seemed less enthused about SAFEs overall.
Isn’t it a bit odd to be hesitant about something that is supposedly good for you?
The SAFE structure can definitely be beneficial to founders. A SAFE with no valuation cap allows founders to have significantly more control over price, it’s quicker to close if you need cash fast, and, hey, it costs less in legal fees.
But there are a few things about this deal structure that give me pause. Is a model that is faster and comes with less legal oversight really better for founders who may be taking on money for the first or second time, compared to a VC who looks at deals all day? Indeed, there are several drawbacks to SAFE rounds that can bite founders down the line.
John Romero’s Doom Memoir Is Full of Fascinating Details
‘Doom Guy: Life in First Person’ is a biography and a history of id Software.
‘Doom Guy: Life in First Person’ is a biography and a history of id Software.
US Employees Are Vacationing More Than They Have in Over a Decade
There’s a big reason airports and resorts are booked up this summer: Americans are taking off work and vacationing more than they have in over a decade. In some cases, their employers are forcing them to. From a report: The pandemic, along with jitters about a potential recession, dampened U.S. workers’ eagerness to take paid time off in recent years. Now, many vacation-bound employees say they’re over such worries. More working adults took vacation days in the first half of 2023 than they did in prepandemic years, according to data from the Labor Department.
Company vacation calendars show more workers are checking out, and for longer stretches, this summer. The number of employees logging vacation days climbed 11% in June compared with the same month in 2022 and 20% compared with June 2021, according to human-resources technology firm Gusto, which tracks time-off requests from workers at more than 300,000 small and midsize businesses. The amount of time they took off also rose, by 5% from last year to an average 32 hours.
[…] Many executives say they are also getting away for longer breaks, even if they don’t fully unplug from work. In a July survey by executive search firm Korn Ferry, 53% of the nearly 300 professionals polled said they planned to take a longer summer vacation this year than in years past. While a quarter said they never connect with work while on vacation, half said they do so once or several times a day.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
There’s a big reason airports and resorts are booked up this summer: Americans are taking off work and vacationing more than they have in over a decade. In some cases, their employers are forcing them to. From a report: The pandemic, along with jitters about a potential recession, dampened U.S. workers’ eagerness to take paid time off in recent years. Now, many vacation-bound employees say they’re over such worries. More working adults took vacation days in the first half of 2023 than they did in prepandemic years, according to data from the Labor Department.
Company vacation calendars show more workers are checking out, and for longer stretches, this summer. The number of employees logging vacation days climbed 11% in June compared with the same month in 2022 and 20% compared with June 2021, according to human-resources technology firm Gusto, which tracks time-off requests from workers at more than 300,000 small and midsize businesses. The amount of time they took off also rose, by 5% from last year to an average 32 hours.
[…] Many executives say they are also getting away for longer breaks, even if they don’t fully unplug from work. In a July survey by executive search firm Korn Ferry, 53% of the nearly 300 professionals polled said they planned to take a longer summer vacation this year than in years past. While a quarter said they never connect with work while on vacation, half said they do so once or several times a day.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Track the trackers together: Ghostery opens up its adblocker library
The provider seeks to make the web more private through the power of a community-driven approach. Here’s all you need to know.
One of the best adblockers on the market has just opened up its tracking library to enable the public to help build a more private browsing experience for all.
Blocking and filtering online trackers since 2009, Ghostery was already used to collaborating with external experts to feed its database. Now, the team decided to make this process more transparent and accessible by the broader online community.
TrackerDB is now open-source and fully available on GitHub. The firm aims to disseminate the knowledge on how the tracking ecosystem works, through a community-driven approach.
Ghostery TrackerDB
“TrackerDB has always been at the heart of Ghostery. This is the proprietary database which we use to name trackers,” Krzysztof Modras, Director of product and engineering at Ghostery, told TechRadar.
Ghostery uses this database to manage categories that help identify web trackers or other annoyances to tell users exactly what they are and who they belong to. The database is managed by the Ghostery team and some external contributors who reach out directly to the service.
“The key difference is that we used to make those choices behind closed doors in the past, now we make them in public,” said Modras. “So, anyone can see what’s the rational and what’s the goal. We make this transparent.”
This commitment to transparency is also extended to the companies whose trackers might get blocked as they will need to dispute these decisions publicly, too.
Ghostery provides individual tracker blocker control and transparency so that the decision is always in users’ hands. (Image credit: Ghostery)
The effort to not just block annoying ads or trackers, but giving a name and a context to each of these entities is what seems to set Ghostery apart from other similar software.
This is thought to help users have more control over the information they wish to share and with whom, giving them better awareness of online tracking.
On this point, Jean-Paul Schmetz, CEO at Ghostery, told us, “The key tactic for Big Tech is making sure that all of these things are invisible so that no one talks about it and no one does anything about it. What you don’t see doesn’t hurt you. We go the other way.”
“The more we make it visible, the more people say, yes, I want to actually block everything. I think it’s also very important to put names on it because it makes it more tangible and what is tangible helps people make more informed choices about why they want to block something.”
We used to make those choices behind closed doors in the past, now we make them in public.
Krzysztof Modras, Ghostery
Another Ghostery feature is the Never Consent option to fight back against cookies consent pop-up fatigue, by automatically clicking to opting out of tracking.
Furthermore, the provider boasts a dedicated website WhoTracks.me where it keeps up-to-date reports about past and new trackers. This can be considered as the world’s largest statistical report on tracking, said Modras, which is now directly connected to TrackerDB.
“It’s kind of another side of a coin where TrackerDB stores data on the trackers (the name, category, etc.), then WhoTracks.me provides statistical information of the activity of the trackers,” he said.
Want to do your part in helping Ghostery track the trackers?
Start using the Ghostery browser extension and look for trackers in the Unidentified category. Submit the blocked URL and give your guess of the tracker’s owner to the TrackerDB GitHub repository and wait for the TrackerDB community to help find the right solution. Good luck!