Compare Chrome extensions: HTTPS Everywhere vs Privacy Badger

Stats HTTPS Everywhere HTTPS Everywhere Privacy Badger Privacy Badger
User count 1,656,162+ 1,000,000+
Average rating 4.46 4.42
Rating count 4,278 1,711
Last updated 2022-09-30 2024-02-06
Size 1.77M 1.90M
Version 2022.5.24 2024.2.6
Short description
Encrypt the Web! Automatically use HTTPS security on many sites. Privacy Badger automatically learns to block invisible trackers.
Full summary

Note: Extension will sunset January 2023. Instructions on how to turn on HTTPS by default in Chrome here: https://eff.org/https-everywhere/set-https-default-your-browser

HTTPS Everywhere is an extension created by EFF and the Tor Project which automatically switches thousands of sites from insecure "http" to secure "https". It will protect you against many forms of surveillance and account hijacking, and some forms of censorship.

The DuckDuckGo Smarter Encryption list is publicly available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0. International license. If you'd like to license the list for commercial use, please reach out to: https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/company/contact-us/

Source code and bug tracker are available at https://github.com/efforg/https-everywhere. Please do not submit bug reports in the reviews!

Changelog: https://www.eff.org/files/Changelog.txt

    ------- IMPORTANT NOTE: -------

If HTTPS Everywhere causes a site to look weird or break, you can disable it for that site using the button in the address bar in the top right of your screen. HTTPS Everywhere for Chrome is currently in beta, and a few such issues are inevitable due to bugs in websites' HTTPS support. Also watch for a "shield" button in the address bar, which means that Chrome blocked insecure portions of the page. Sometimes pages will look weird with their insecure portions removed. Clicking on the shield will let you load them, but will reduce your security and privacy.

Special thanks to Aaron Swartz, Mike Perry, Jay Weisskopf, Nick Semenkovich, Jacob Hoffman-Andrews, Yan Zhu, Vijay P., and William Budington for their work on the Chrome port.

Instead of keeping lists of what to block, Privacy Badger automatically discovers trackers based on their behavior. Privacy Badger sends the Global Privacy Control signal to opt you out of data sharing and selling, and the Do Not Track signal to tell companies not to track you. If trackers ignore your wishes, Privacy Badger will learn to block them.

Besides automatic tracker blocking, Privacy Badger replaces potentially useful trackers (video players, comments widgets, etc.) with click-to-activate placeholders, and removes outgoing link click tracking on Facebook and Google, with more privacy protections on the way. To learn more, see our FAQ at https://privacybadger.org/#faq

To get help or to report bugs, please email extension-devs@eff.org. If you have a GitHub account, you can use our GitHub issue tracker at https://github.com/EFForg/privacybadger/issues

*** Why does Privacy Badger need to read and change all my data on the websites I visit? ***

When you install Privacy Badger, your browser warns that Privacy Badger can “read and change all your data on the websites you visit”. You are right to be alarmed. You should only install extensions made by organizations you trust.

Privacy Badger requires these permissions to do its job of automatically detecting and blocking trackers on all websites you visit. We are not ironically (or unironically) spying on you. For more information, see our Privacy Badger extension permissions explainer: https://github.com/EFForg/privacybadger/blob/master/doc/permissions.md

Note that the extension permissions warnings only cover what the extension has access to, not what the extension actually does with what it has access to (such as whether the extension secretly uploads your browsing data to its servers). Privacy Badger will never share data about your browsing unless you choose to share it (by filing a broken site report). For more information, see EFF’s Privacy Policy for Software: https://www.eff.org/code/privacy/policy