The Digital Security Digest, by Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), is a weekly newsletter with security tips that keep you, your sources, and your devices safe. If someone shared this newsletter with you, please subscribe here.

Our favorite privacy-preserving browser extension comes to Safari

Most web browsers devote a lot of resources to tracking your activity when you visit a website — often leveraging third-party advertisers like Google and providers of tools for monitoring cloud services, like Datadog. These trackers use cookies and other technologies to analyze your behavior. That’s why our friends at the Electronic Frontier Foundation maintain a browser extension called Privacy Badger, which helps you block many kinds of trackers. In addition, Privacy Badger sends the Global Privacy Control signal to websites, which lets them know to opt you out of sharing or selling your personal data. The extension also blocks trackers from websites that are known to ignore this signal. Most recently, EFF announced support for Safari on macOS.

What you can do

Try out Privacy Badger. Whatever browser you use, to cut out unwanted trackers, install Privacy Badger.

Only install trusted browser extensions. In the long, long ago, I worked with Google Chrome, conducting privacy and security research. One area I studied concerned browser extensions and how people understand them. They’re powerful because they can access and alter what appears in your browser. Unfortunately, there is a cottage industry of malicious browser extensions designed to use this far-reaching capability for fraud, hijacking your accounts, and sometimes even your — ahem — browser history. You really want to avoid installing extensions from unfamiliar developers and sources.

Updates from our team

Our team is always ready to assist journalists with digital security concerns. Reach out here, and stay safe and secure out there.

Best,
Martin Shelton
Deputy Director of Digital Security
Freedom of the Press Foundation