Jacqueline

Ghostery is a popular browser extension that is said to help protect users’ privacy by hiding their IP addresses from websites that track those addresses. However, a study published in the journal PeerJ found that Ghostery does not always hide an individual’s IP address, and in some cases may even reveal it. The study tested whether five different VPNs, three browsers (Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Safari), and two Ghostery versions (v3.0 and v4.0) couldhide an individual’s IP address when they used the Tor browser. All five VPNs and all three browsers were found to be effective at hiding an individual’s IP address when they used the Tor browser, but only the Firefox and Chrome versions were found to be effective when using the other browsers.

The study also found that when using the Ghostery v3.0 version, the IP address was sometimes revealed when the user switched to the Ghostery v4.0 version. The study’s authors suggest that Ghostery v4.0 should be updated to include a feature that hides an individual’s IP address when using the Tor browser.