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Comparative benchmarks against widely used blockers: Top 15 Most Popular Tech & Gadget Websites
The results emphasize 3rd-party requests, as these are, I believe, a key statistics when it comes to gauge privacy matters. The rationale being that the more a user push data to 3rd parties (a mere net request is pushing data) -- typically without the user being aware -- the larger the footprint of leaked metadata. It is difficult for a user to appreciate how much metadata is leaked to 3rd parties when visiting a web page, as requests to 3rd-party agents are not easy to see, let alone easy to act upon. This is where HTTP Switchboard will help you the most.
The values are averages of aggregated results of the 15 web page visited over 5 runs. In the table, a result reported as "x / n" means "3rd-party count / total count".
The most important figure in my opinion with regard to privacy is the 3rd-party Domain count.
| HTTPSBOOB | Ghostery | Adblock+ | HTTPSBAA/BX | Disconnect | No blocker | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Domains | 26 / 27 | 59 / 60 | 66 / 67 | 76 / 77 | 85 / 86 | 398 / 399 |
| Hosts | 37 / 69 | 91 / 140 | 97 / 146 | 115 / 173 | 145 / 203 | 580 / 646 |
| Scripts | 0 / 0 | 146 / 204 | 151 / 208 | 155 / 240 | 194 / 262 | 489 / 578 |
| Cookies | 0 / 0 | 9 / 38 | 6 / 25 | 16 / 60 | 17 / 58 | 233 / 304 |
| Net requests | 309 / 710 | 583 / 1,252 | 583 / 1,233 | 655 / 1,390 | 671 / 1,370 | 1,737 / 2,494 |
| Bandwidth | 19,801,676 | 30,769,246 | 30,340,281 | 31,174,355 | 30,895,419 | 33,826,528 |
- HTTPSBOOB means HTTP Switchboard with out-of-the-box settings.
- HTTPSBAA/BX means HTTP Switchboard in allow-all/block-exceptionally mode, with out-of-the-box preset blacklists.
Benchmarks were done using Browser session benchmark. The script used is:
wait 3
repeat 5
clear cache
clear cookies
http://www.cnet.com/
http://www.yahoo.com/tech
http://www.theverge.com/
http://www.tomshardware.com/
http://www.gizmodo.com/
http://www.wired.com/
http://www.zdnet.com/
http://www.engadget.com/
http://www.digitaltrends.com/
http://www.techrepublic.com/
http://www.gizmag.com/
http://www.imore.com/
http://www.gsmarena.com/
http://www.geek.com/
http://www.anandtech.com/
List taken from Top 15 Most Popular Tech & Gadget Websites | January 2014.