firefox, trackers and ghostery [SURELY THIS HAS HAD A DECENT RUN AND NOW SHOULD BE RETIRED]

[Gerhard Magnus]

On 07/18/2013 04:38 AM, Basil Chupin wrote:
> On 18/07/13 21:13, pete smout wrote:
>> On 18/07/13 11:49, Patrick Asselman wrote:
>>> On 2013-07-18 12:16, pete smout wrote:
>>>> On 18/07/13 11:09, Patrick Asselman wrote:
>>>>> On 2013-07-17 13:14, Sajan Parikh wrote:
>>>>>> On 07/17/2013 04:41 AM, pete smout wrote:
>
> ...and I am writing that it is time to retire this exchange because it
> does not go in any way in answering the OP's question.
>
> [rest savagely pruned and related to the waste bin]
>
> BC
>
I'm the OP who started all this. Just for the record -- in case the Big 
Government is interested :) -- here's how it all began.
----------
I've posted in the past about how slow Firefox can be when it's loading 
pages. Now I've found something that makes a noticeable difference: the 
addon "ghostery" that blocks "trackers," which their website defines as 
page elements - scripts, pixels, iframes, etc. - that are normally 
invisible to the user. What "trackers" seem to be all about is 
marketing, and apparently they've been wasting a lot of my time.

http://www.ghostery.com

What's especially interesting to me is a list that shows the trackers 
that have been blocked for each website I visit. For example, the intro 
page for cnn.com includes 10 such unwanted visitors with names like 
"Audience Science," "Dynamic Science," and "Scorecard Research." 
Fascinating stuff!
----------
I'm still very interested in what determines how fast a browser loads 
content from servers as I'd like to do some webpage design for phones. 
Since my original post, I've noticed that ghostery sometimes (but not 
always) blocks commenting, which makes me wonder how much such 
processing related to webpage interactivity is a drag on browser speed. 
(This block can be fixed by using ghostery's "pause" feature and 
reloading the page.)