As Ghostery’s popularity has grown, so too have the needs of our users. We of course have our support forum where we regularly monitor and implement the feedback we receive, but we felt it was time for us to take Ghostery to the next level. So we spent several months conducting scores of user surveys and tests to find out what you liked and didn’t like about using Ghostery. We listened to all of your feedback, drank a lot of coffee and Red Bull, and got our engineering mojo on. The Ghostery team has been hard at work for the past year to bring you a radically improved Ghostery experience. So, it is with much excitement that we announce the most significant upgrade to Ghostery since its inception... introducing Ghostery 6.0! 

A lot has changed with Ghostery 6.0, the full list of which is detailed in the release notes. But for those looking for the short version, here’s a brief overview of the improvements we’re most excited about:

Easier-to-use interface

Our research revealed that many of you found the Ghostery interface to be confusing. With a focus on user education and empowerment, we made several usability improvements… some small and some big. For example, a lot of people didn’t know what the “Whitelist Site” button did, so we gave it a more intuitive name of “Trust Site”. And for those sites that you don’t trust, we’ve added a new “Restrict Site” button that allows you to block all trackers on a site with a single click. We’ve also recategorized all 2,000+ trackers into eight easy-to-understand categories, to give you more control over which types of trackers you do and don’t want to block. Don't worry, your original blocking preferences for each specific tracker have been retained. You can see and edit them by going into the Tracker Settings and expanding each of the new tracker categories. Hooray for simplicity!

All new design

Adding to the confusion many users expressed with regard to using Ghostery was its antiquated visual design. Ghostery’s appearance has remained relatively the same since it launched, so we set to work to give Ghostery a fresh new look. From the new dashboard that gives you a quick overview of trackers on a site, to the redesigned purple box (now called the ‘information bubble’) whose appearance can be easily configured to your personal preference, everything about Ghostery’s look and feel has been vastly improved.

Save & sync your settings

The most frequently requested feature was the ability for a user to sync settings across browsers and devices. We’re excited to give you what you’ve been asking for. When you create a Ghostery account, you can now sync your preferences across all the browsers and devices on which you use Ghostery. To start with, this setting will be available on Firefox, with other browsers to soon follow. And we’re also working hard to release newly-designed versions of our iOS and Android browsers that will also support the new sync settings feature. 

For those of you who help support Ghostery by opting in to anonymously share your browsing data with us, rest assured that it won’t be associated with your account data. Same goes for if you have not opted-in to share any data with us, as we have never collected anything from you, and none of that has changed with Ghostery 6.0. If you have any questions about our data collection policies, please visit our FAQ. You can also check out our Privacy Statement for more detailed information about our data practices. In short, we are committed to maintaining your privacy. We’ve gone out of our way to make sure we get this right, including reaching out in advance to a number of other privacy advocates and regulators to let them know what you’ve been asking for. We don’t always get it perfect right out of the gate, however, so if there are still more ways we can improve this beloved product, please let us know. 

We also encourage you to check out our tutorial video here.

Now if you haven’t already, go upgrade to Ghostery 6.0 and tell us what you think. We can’t wait to hear from you. And stay tuned for more new features and enhancements.

Larry Furr is the VP of Product at Ghostery.