Lightbeam is a Firefox addon developed by Mozilla in an attempt to provide you with a simple and comfortable manner of visualizing first and third-party services that might be tracking you browsing. Chrome Lightbeam is a Google Chrome extension that uses interactive visualizations to show relationships under third parties. Thunderbeam-Lightbeam for Chrome offered by Rachelhxh. Lightbeam is an add-on for Firefox that brings to light the array of first and third party companies people interact with everyday across the Web. Download Firefox Extensions to add features that customize browsing. Protect passwords, find deals, enhance video, and block annoying ads with browser apps.
An email from Mozilla about Lightbeam for Firefox said,
We built Lightbeam to shine a spotlight on online data tracking to help people understand the Web. After you download and install the Lightbeam add-on to Firefox, it creates a real-time visualization of the websites you visit and all the third parties active on those sites. As you browse from site to site you can watch the visualization grow. You can also share your Lightbeam data with Mozilla and better inform a global dialog on the prevalence of tracking.
I’m not particularly interested in sharing my data with Mozilla – they probably know everything there is to know about me already without giving them more – but I was interested in seeing how this worked and what kind of privacy insights it offered.
The graph at the top of the post shows Lightbeam after being installed in Firefox for only one day. The circles are sites I visited, the triangles are “third party site” connected to the sites I visited. In one day after installing Lightbeam, I visited 11 sites and was connected to 117 third party sites.
On the graph view, if you hover over any one of the circles or triangles, you can see what it is. You can manipulate the display. For example, here is the graph with third party sites dimmed out.
Dragging (like on a Google map) will zoom in or out of the graph so you can look at the data in various closer or more meta ways. The controls under the display help you choose what you want to examine more closely.
The Cookies filter identifies when a site has stored some data in your browser. You can set site preferences and the graph will identify sites that are blocked or watched.
The data can be viewed as a clock (not shown) and as a list, which you can see here.
Next I visited this blog. Clicking on anything in the graph gives you more information. Here’s the graph with the little WT icon for Web Teacher selected. A sidebar opens with all kinds of data about the site.
Some of the sites this blog is connected to are obvious from the content, ads and various sharing icons: youtube, gravatar, twitter, blogherads, addthis. Further down the list of 33 sites linking from Web Teacher, I found names I never heard of and didn’t know how they got there. I suspect they come from something related to the ads, but I really don’t know for sure. And this is my blog!
Lightbeam Firefox Alternative
LIghtbeam is an eye-opener. It gives me the ability to block sites, but beyond that I don’t see many opportunities for actions to improve my privacy I can take using this addon. Am I missing something important Lightbeam offers me as an individual user? Is it just part of big data collection about me?
Lightbeam showing the trackers on the website 'abovetopsecret.com' | |
| Initial release | 2011 |
|---|---|
| Stable release | |
| Repository | https://github.com/mozilla/lightbeam-we |
| Type | Mozilla extension |
| License | MPL 2.0 |
| Website | https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/lightbeam-3-0/ |
Lightbeam (called Collusion in its experimental version) is an add-on for Firefox that displays third party tracking cookies placed on the user's computer while visiting various websites. It displays a graph of the interactions and connections of sites visited and the tracking sites to which they provide information.[1]
Functionality[edit]
Once installed and enabled, Lightbeam records all tracking cookies saved on the user's computer through the Firefox browser by the various sites that the user visits.[2] It differentiates between 'behavioural' tracking cookies (those which record specific actions on a site) and other tracking cookies.[3][4] At any time during a browsing session the user can open a separate tab, using the 'Show Lightbeam' option of Tools, to display a graph of sites visited and cookies placed. This will show when a given cookie is used by multiple sites, thus enabling those sites to track the user from site to site. Lightbeam will also allow the user to see which advertisers or other third parties are connected to which cookies, and thus can develop information about the user's browsing from site to site.[3][4]
Mozilla emphasizes that it displays its data in real time.[2][4]
Light Beam For Firefox Review
According to Mozilla, all data collected by Lightbeam is stored locally, and is not shared with anyone, unless the user intentionally exports the data and shares it manually.[3][4] Future versions may include provisions to reject or delete tracking cookies as well as monitoring them.[3]
TED presentation[edit]
Gary Kovacs, CEO of Mozilla, presented Collusion in a TED talk (Technology, Entertainment, Design) in early 2012.[2][5]
Lightbeam Extension
'Collusion will allow us to pull back the curtain and provide users with more information about the growing role of third parties, how data drives most Web experiences, and ultimately how little control we have over that experience and our loss of data.' Kovacs wrote in a Mozilla blog post about the TED talk.[6]
Reactions[edit]
Writing for ExtremeTech, Sebastian Anthony found the tracking connections revealed by Collusion to be 'quite astonishing'.[7] He went on to say that: 'Now, you can either use Collusion to shock and appall yourself, or you can use it to show friends and family just how rampant behavioral tracking is. Once your mother sees that no less than five companies track her behavior when she visits MSNBC.com, and six when she visits FoxNews.com, she might be a little more cautious.'[7]
'Ms Smith' finds the results of Collusion to be 'jaw dropping'.[4]
Lightbeam For Firefox
Stephen C. Webster, writing for The Raw Story wrote of the information provided by Collusion: 'While it doesn’t sound all that creepy, just wait until you see your own graph. A brief test-run by Raw Story revealed that after clicking a number of popular websites — like Comedy Central, Netflix, Hulu, the Conan O’Brien show, Amazon, The New York Times and others — more than three dozen organizations were tracking our movements across multiple websites.'[8]
History and plans[edit]
Collusion was originally developed by Atul Varma, a Mozilla engineer, as an independent project.[3] It was later adopted as a Mozilla project.[3]
Lightbeam Software
Mozilla had announced that they would be continuing the development of Collusion with support from the Ford Foundation in 2012.[4][2][6] However, beginning in October 2019, they ended official support in favour of built in Enhanced Tracking Protection in Firefox.[9]
Lightbeam Firefox Mobile
Notes[edit]
Lightbeam For Firefox Download
- ^Gibbs, Samuel (28 October 2013). 'Firefox Mozilla's Lightbeam Firefox tool shows who's tracking your online movements'. Guardian. Retrieved 5 November 2013.
- ^ abcdNeal, Dave (March 1, 2012). 'Mozilla Collusion lets you see who is tracking you'. The Inquirer. Incisive Media. Retrieved 4 November 2013.
- ^ abcdefPaul, Ian (February 29, 2012). 'Firefox Add-On Collusion Shows Who's Tracking You Online'. PC World. Retrieved 4 November 2013.
- ^ abcdef'Ms. Smith' (June 21, 2012). 'Track the trackers with Collusion: Interview with Mozilla's Ryan Merkley'. Network World. Retrieved 4 November 2013.
- ^'Gary Kovacs: Tracking our online trackers'. TED Talks. May 2012. Retrieved 4 November 2013.
- ^ abKovacs, Gary (28 February 2012). 'Quest for Transparency'. Archived from the original on 12 October 2013. Retrieved 4 November 2013.
- ^ abAnthony, Sebastian (July 8, 2011). 'How to visualize behavior tracking cookies with a Firefox add-on'. ExtremeTech. Ziff Davis. Retrieved 5 November 2013.
- ^Webster, Stephen C. (March 1, 2012). 'Software gives visual representation of who's following you online'. The Raw Story. Retrieved 5 November 2013.
- ^'Lightbeam extension for Firefox is no longer supported | Firefox Help'. support.mozilla.org. Retrieved 2019-11-15.