Meet Ghostery’s Way of a True User Agent 

Have you ever come across a broken website that halts your browsing experience? Whether it's blocked PDFs or failed login attempts, no user should feel stuck, confused, or frustrated due to a broken site. To maintain a seamless online experience, we’re excited to introduce someone special who’s been patiently waiting behind the scenes — a complex feature built by Ghostery that offers a unique capability among ad blockers: Ghostery’s new browsing assistant.

Working Against Web Breakage

Breakage on the web, both visible and invisible, is unavoidable. At Ghostery, our goal is to stay one step ahead, always acting in the user’s best interest. This assistant improves the browsing experience not just for Ghostery users but potentially for users of other ad blockers too. Perhaps in the future, all ad blockers can come together to implement a browsing assistant across platforms — creating more value for the broader user community. In the meantime, you can enjoy the assistant’s hard work, now live in Ghostery.

Ghostery’s new browsing assistant is a small but mighty feature designed to make your browsing smoother, more intuitive, and a lot less frustrating — especially when ad blocking disrupts site functionality. Working to predict and prevent breakage, the assistant acts as a true user agent for the privacy-conscious web community. It’s helpful for tech experts, multi-ad blocker users, and those who simply don’t have time to troubleshoot broken pages.

He’s Not Bob the Builder, But He Can Fix It

Lovingly dubbed "Bob" during development, this feature acts as a navigation assistant for your browser — think of it like Waze, the community-driven traffic app, but for web browsing.

Just like Waze alerts you to speed traps or construction zones, Ghostery’s assistant watches out for site breakage caused by ad blockers. If something goes wrong, Ghostery steps in with a proactive fix — allowing you to continue browsing with minimal disruption.

How Ghostery’s Browsing Assistant Works

The assistant is informed by breakage reports from the Ghostery user community. At the same time, Ghostery’s WhoTracks.Me automatic breakage detection constantly monitors web pages for abnormal behavior. When breakage is detected, the assistant alerts the user in real time — while Ghostery works behind the scenes to fix the issue.

Here’s what happens when breakage is detected:

1. Ghostery temporarily pauses on the broken page so the content can load properly and you can continue your task.
2. You receive a notification acknowledging the issue, which you can dismiss once the page functions normally.

As fixes are rolled out in the background, Ghostery ensures they’re applied automatically. Whether it takes minutes or days, you’ll get the update without lifting a finger.

Privacy Is Paramount — But Pausing Ghostery May Help

You might wonder: if privacy is the goal, why pause Ghostery or any ad blocker that protects users? Fair question. Here’s the reality:

• Temporary, page-specific pauses are a practical compromise. They let you complete time-sensitive tasks — like booking a flight or logging into a secure site — with minimal data exposure.
• Your protection is only paused briefly and is automatically re-enabled once the issue is resolved or you leave the page.

Online tracking relies on consistent, linked behavior. When a page is briefly unblocked, trackers don’t have the time or context to build a meaningful profile. Since blocking remains active on all other sites, isolated tracking data becomes fragmented — useless for advertisers or data brokers.

At Ghostery, we believe user agency matters most. You should never feel forced to choose between privacy and functionality. With Ghostery’s browsing assistant, you don’t have to.

Ghostery — The Most User-Friendly Ad Blocker

Every ad blocker breaks pages — whether through subtle slowdowns or visible layout issues. But at Ghostery, we’re not content with that status quo.

Our mission is to be the most user-friendly ad blocker on the internet, and that means being proactive about solving breakage before users even notice it.

With Ghostery’s new browsing assistant, automatic breakage detection works to continuously monitor websites for abnormal behavior and report issues in real time. This helps improve the browsing experience not just for Ghostery users, but for users of other ad blockers as well.

Our long-term vision? A future where all ad blockers collaborate to implement this feature or similar systems across platforms, creating more value for the entire privacy-focused user community.

In the meantime, Ghostery’s browsing assistant is live and hard at work behind the scenes on Ghostery, making your browsing smoother, faster, and more private.

Questions about this new feature? Feel free to get in touch with our team. Our new browsing assistant might be just one part of our roadmap — but it’s already making a big difference.