An Overview to PrivDog: View2

Following presents one of views from staff to describe PrivDog (http://privdog.com) product:

Introducing PrivDog

For over 15 years Comodo has had one single mission “Creating a Trusted Internet” (http://www.melih.com/2008/08/07/comodomelih-manifesto-why-i-am-doing-what-i-am-doing/). We’re always looking out for both businesses and consumers to ensure a rich, thriving business environment on the internet while offering free world-class consumer protection for free through programs such as Comodo Internet Security(Best Internet Security Software 2022 | Antivirus Total Security) (recently awarded a perfect score on AV test (http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home-user/windows-xp/marapr-2013) along with the PC Mag editor’s choice award).

Comodo’s growing team is dedicated to building and finding solutions that protect users from all the latest threats while maintaining our standards of world-class user experience. Unlike the competitors we also offer these solutions for free to ensure they can be used by the largest audience possible.

In recent times we have found a significant increase in complaints of malware, intrusive tracking, and unwanted downloads driven through online advertising tactics. These lead to issues for both consumers and businesses as compromised user trust will inevitability lead to lower web traffic plus reductions in ad clicks and conversions.

There are various tools have come on the market to combat this including ad blockers, browser optimization tools, and even Comodo’s own secure browser product (http://browser.comodo.com). Some of these tools already block the ads that create harm for end users but are missing one critical piece. Simply put if you block ads entirely you kill the internet. And we here at Comodo aren’t interested in killing the internet, we just want you to trust it.

Increased adoption of ad blockers systematically destroys the eco-system that keeps the internet alive.

To further explain

  1. Publications produce content for consumption online (i.e the Huffington Post)

  2. They offer this content for free to end users to maximize their audience

  3. The publication in turn makes revenue because other businesses want to gain exposure to this large audience to offer their goods and services though banner and text advertising

  4. By blocking ads the publication is less incentivized to produce content, which in turn may lead them to paywall their site (charging consumers), which decreases traffic and eyeballs for businesses looking to gain exposure through online ads.
    So basically by offering an ad block solution you do protect consumers from harmful ads and tracking but at the end of the day they are paying the bill to maintain the same internet they had before.
    We believe in order for the internet to remain a trusted and profitable place to do business the world needs a tool that blocks all the bad but still keeps the eco-system alive.

That way

• Consumers still get free content
• Businesses still have a profitable channel to push their goods and services
• Content providers still have a way to earn revenue without charging consumers

And the best news today is we found the answer and it’s ready for you!

We are proud to announce that Comodo has partnered with our new friends at AdTrustMedia (www.adtrustmedia.com) to help further our mission of creating trust. As part of this partnership Comodo will be offering AdTrustMedia’s free consumer application “PrivDog” (www.privdog.com) to all users of Comodo Security products.

What is PrivDog?

Simply put PrivDog makes your internet browsing Faster/Safer/Private while still keeping the economy of the internet active and thriving. Consumers win, Publishers win, Advertisers win.

Faster

You’ll see internet content 50% faster or more by blocking the existing banner ads and replacing with safe trusted ads. Now your only problem will be what to do with all that new found free time.

Safer

No malware and unwanted downloads here, our friends on the AdTrustMedia compliance team strictly review all ad content prior to its release on the network. No more toolbars or other software clogging up your browsing experience with junk.

Private

PrivDog blocks all intrusive tracking cookies, pixels, and data collection. The uninvited guests are no longer coming in.

User experience is our top priority here at Comodo and we’re glad to have found a partner AdTrustMedia that shares our vision of creating the trusted internet. As part of this you may turn off or adjust any features at any time. Feel free to adjust your settings any time by simply clicking the dog icon at the top of your browser or visit the extension area of your preferred browser.

For more information on Comodo visit us at www.comodo.com

For more information on AdTrustMedia visit www.adtrustmedia.com

For more information or to download a free copy on PrivDog from AdTrustMedia visit www.privdog.com

Note: PrivDog is currently compatible with any PC running the Comodo Dragon, Google Chrome, or Mozilla Firefox browser. Internet Explorer version is expected in summer 2013

Let me guess, no plans on making it compatible with Opera? 88) Otherwise good idea and hope it gains in popularity (and compatibility)
Edit: Opera 12.15 that is, don’t really care for the new Opera, not until it has the options I seek.

PrivDog?
There is virtually no information on this product on the internet:

From PrivDog’s own FAQ page: http://www.privdog.com/faq.html

<<
Q – What do you mean by a trusted source?
A - PrivDog only displays ads in your browser from AdTrustMedia, a web advertising network dedicated to placing only malware free ads from reputable advertisers.

Oh - so all my ads come from one source called AdTrustMedia now? That sounds great! but wait - who are they?

Well, they:

  1. own PrivDog
  2. run a site that allows partners to “increase revenue with the AdTrustMedia Affiliate Program” https://adtrustmedia.com/

So, the real Question - is Comodo now actually putting AdWare in their product under the guise of protecting us?

I agree with you, their privacy policy seem fishy…seem like just any other ad company on the internet, I read nothing in their privacy policy that they take privacy extra careful, I do not give a fuck if the information is personally identifiable or not, a fucking IP address is in the end enough to connect it to a real human being, Last thing we need is one more company like AdTrustMedia to map our digital life. As I said I do not give a fuck if they do not collect my real name or any other real info, my IP is enough…the governments who rule the world could easily find the person behind a IP address… not only goverments cause companies can get information about Ips through operators aswell…ISPs earn a lot of money by this… it is ad companies that pay ISPs to get the persons behind IPs addresses… ISPs gladly give them out as long as they pay… This is the reason we do not want any company like AdTrustMedia to map our digital life.

Also one more thing That I strongly dislike, is why Comodo include it as an external extension ?
it seem fishy to me, if comodo really care about privacy they should put their name on it…
So they can hold responsible. There is obviously an extreme for this kind of services, if Comodo really want dragon to stand out as browser and to be the ultimate privacy browser, they should not rely on external ad company extensions rather they should have similiar program code embedded in the browser itself…

I have been using Ghostery for a couple of years now…I have been eagerly waiting for a good alternative…
Cause Ghostery have kind of suspiscious privacy policy aswell… and there is an ad company behind it…
But I guess there is better that only ONE company map my life then thousands…

Some other observations, Ghostery seem to find a lot more trackers… Privalert and Ghostery where identical in finding trackers… Privalert was better to me it seem.

I am eagerly wait for peoples feedback…regarding privdog… right now I use both Ghostery and privdog…
But as it seem now Privdog can’t replace Ghostery cause Ghostery find a lot more trackers…
As I said I find it strange… when Privalert was soo good why release something that is worse then privlert ?

When Privelert was released I did stop using Ghostery right away…From what I know Privalert was made under the Comodo name and no external fishy ad company was behind it ?

Privdog I am sure will be a very good financial income for comodo… I hope some day that a program will be released about people who really care about privacy for real…it is obvious to me comodo have sold out our privacy for $$$…it is kind of disappointing… but I guess cash is king…

I forgot to add, I am also unsure why they did stop Privalert, I think the reason was not that it was unstable…but I think rather that some of their partners force them to put it down…or because of financial reasons… I am getting more suspicious…

Guys, that company is mine…

I am a serial entrepreneur:)

whatever concerns you guys have let me know…will be sorted…

Question 1: If I use PrivDog, will it save any kind of information of me at all?
Question 2: If yes then exactly what information is it saving?
Question 3: Will PrivDog ever make it to Opera 12.15?
Question 4: Unrelated but can you answer Question 1 and question 2 but instead regarding Secure DNS?

Thank you!

I … think … It respects Comodo Dragons advanced settings …

For example if you go into Settings, down the bottom click Advanced to expand the extra options …

And use say
Suppress HTTP referrer header
Do Not Track

Content Settings Button
turn off Cookies / Images / Javascript / Handlers / Plugins Click to play / PopUps / Location / Notifications / Mouse Cursor / Media ( Camera, Microphone ) - So that you need to manually allow these elements on a per site basis ( my preference :slight_smile: )

System
turn off “Continue running background apps when comodo dragon is closed”

… It would be nice to get confirmation officially that PrivDog does respect those settings in the browser ( and indeed for any other browser you may use this with )

It needs clarifying I think.

1)No
2)NA
3)hopefully
4)No

PrivDog is your Privacy Dog…it will do many other things in the next versions to protect your privacy. I didn`t want to build a privacy product that would kill internet businesses and PrivDog. PrivDog has best of both worlds and its a win win for everyone.

Alright thank you, though about question 4 I worded that badly so by no did you mean that you don’t do that or that you won’t answer the question? :slight_smile:

Thank you.

dns doesn’t save any info etc…

So when I make a DNS request that request will not be logged in any way, shape or form? (sorry for going off topic)
If not then thank you, I’ll probably change to Secure DNS then.

there are billions of queires a day…there is some caching…but this is not for tracking you…

what is this? :smiley: ???

I’m getting it too. =3

First CIS gets detected as malicious by some anti-virus vendor (can’t remember which at the moment) and now PrivDog is detected as malware by Chrome.

Coincident? 88)

Edit: Removed image from quote.

Thats just Googles “Enable phishing and malware protection” ( You all have it selected by default in Dragons Advanced Settings )

I think its because its such a new plugin ( .exe installer ) googles database has not captured it as safe yet.

So because its an executable you are downloading that is unrecognised on the phishing and malware data base its flagged as potentially harmful.

I had it first time too, checked it thoroughly with MSSE and Malwarebytes antimalware … Came up clean. No suspicious behaviour found since using it either.

Not good for first impressions though I agree :slight_smile:

( Probably firefox users will see the same too, that also uses googles phishing and malware protection )

The anti-virus vendor was probably just a false positive.

I cant imagine Comodo would want to debut a potential money maker that was something else, that would be really bad for business.

I’ve downloaded it with Chrome before and haven’t gotten that warning, it definitely happened a few days after the file was released.

Edit: Unless they’ve updated it, in which case the above does not apply.

The problem has been rectified, you can now download PrivDog again.

Shane.

I wish that PrivDog don’t make one for IE, I sure hope no security app does, this way people would be encouraged to keep on using the Trojan; aka Explorer .

Hi PeaceWave,
Just a friendly note.
Your opinion about Internet Explorer is welcome, but malicious name calling of any software product is against the Forum Policy 8.4, thank you.