PrivDog is a simple application that blocks advertisements and protects your privacy from malicious users around the web. While it is usually bundled in with other applications, PrivDog is a fully featured add-on that is completely free as well.
Installation & Requirements
The exact installation process for the app depends on the browser you are going to use but it should be very fast and without issues. The add-on works in most popular browsers, including Internet Explorer and Firefox.
Interface
What is brilliant about PrivDog is that it has a fully fleshed out interface that can give you information about threats, advertisements and more as well as a management menu that you can use to optimize your browsing. Information is presented in a very clear manner and should be enough to keep a user busy for a while.
There is a variety of things that the application takes care of. First and foremost, it provides a safe network of ads that come from trusted sources and do not infringe on your security. The network in question is AdTrustMedia and that is also why the application usually comes in other bundles. The idea is that users will be fine with ads if they are at least provided by a safe place so they do not have to worry about security. However, users can also opt out of all advertisements via the plugin’s easily accessible settings menu.
This menu is accessed by the gear icon in the plugin’s information menu and offers quite enough options for ads on your browser. You can choose to block or allow trackers, third party widgets, ads and statistics as well as to send Do Not Track requests at websites. Furthermore, you can add websites to an exceptions list so that nothing on there will be blocked. Clicking on the plugin’s icon while browsing a website will also tell you if it is in your exceptions list or not. This is simply a way to support your favorite websites that have ads as their source of income. Of course, listing exceptions is completely optional and you can skip it all together.
In regards to browsing, most websites work brilliantly with PrivDog. Although there are other options for ad-blocking, this little add-on worked in almost every website I tried and it did not break anything at all. Some of them were bad coded and could not get restructured when the ads were removed so they displayed blank spaces instead. Still, that is a very rare occurrence so it should not really affect the majority of users.
Pros
-Quick and painless installation
-Real time statistics about what the plugin is blocking
-Decent configuration settings that include exceptions
Cons
-Can break some websites
Conclusion
If you are itching for a new ad-blocker that respects your privacy and security then PrivDog is what you want. This is even more relevant if you are simply looking for a trusted network of advertisements because that is also where this add-on excels at.
