While there’s no shortage of apps and extensions that keep websites from looking over your shoulders, Startpage’s new Privacy Protection extension is definitely worth mentioning.
The extension blocks trackers and cookies from third parties that like to build a profile of you. The tool also gives a score to the website you visit based on how much data the website in question is trying to collect about you.
You can click on the extension icon in your browser to get more information about a website, but basically Privacy Protection does all the work in the background to protect you. better protect privacy while surfing.
What is striking is that the extension is very thorough. below Manage trackers and cookies you will see a list of every domain that was blocked by the tool. In this menu you can also unblock specific domains, without this being at the expense of your protection for the entire website you visit.
Many other extensions and apps often block all trackers on a site, which can cause the website to crash as a whole.
Startpage determines which domains should be blocked on the basis of PrivacyBadger. PrivacyBadger is another extension that has been around since 2014, but it now feels a bit dated. Also, there is no rating system to determine how far websites go in collecting your data. Privacy Protection from Startpage is therefore preferred.
Search engine you get
StartPage is best known for its privacy-friendly search engine, which uses Google’s search results without letting the internet giant learn anything about you. So it’s no big surprise that you get the search engine by default when you install the Privacy Protection extension.
As mentioned, you get similar search results as with Google, only the company cannot build a profile of you based on your search history.
If you don’t like the StartPage search engine, you will have a problem if you want to keep using the Privacy Protection function. The extension no longer works as soon as you change search engine. Only if you use the Vivaldi or Firefox browser, Privacy Protection will continue to work in combination with, for example, the Google search engine.
The Privacy Protection extension isn’t available for Safari yet, but it seems only a matter of time before it becomes available for Apple’s browser as well. The extension does work in other browsers that run on Chromium, such as Microsoft Edge, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi and of course Chrome.
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