For questions, comments or suggestions, please open a new thread or post in an existing one. This one is intended to give a quick overview over the software only.
More than ten years ago, Microsoft started to add telemetry to the Windows Operating System. Here at Safer-Networking, we were of course sensible about the data shared there. A few tools popped up, including the famous xp-AntiSpy, which stopped to be developed in 2015.
Team Spybot needed more telemetry covered as Microsoft added more telemetry, so we came up with our first quick tool, using the working title Cut The Line.
This soon grew to cover more and more telemetry entries. Once other types of software started to add telemetry - which was giving tracking a new name and supposed purpose - we added more categories that the now called Spybot Anti-Beacon covered. Browsers and Office Software for example.
At one point, a few antivirus companies made it into the press for their massive telemetry, and Patrick did some research on the antivirus market, showing that nearly all antivirus software tracks, and many could even be called spyware according to the Anti-Spyware Coalition, where the same antivirus vendors created a common definition of what spyware is (Safer-Networking was part of the working group on definitions back then). So Antivirus became another category covered by Spybot Anti-Beacon.
In recent years, the passive approach of Anti-Beacon - mostly using the software's own settings to disable telemetry - was supplemented by an active part called Live Monitor. While Live Monitor only monitors telemetry that wasn't stopped by disabled settings in the first place, it gives a good indication of how much telemetry would still be going on.
More than ten years ago, Microsoft started to add telemetry to the Windows Operating System. Here at Safer-Networking, we were of course sensible about the data shared there. A few tools popped up, including the famous xp-AntiSpy, which stopped to be developed in 2015.
Team Spybot needed more telemetry covered as Microsoft added more telemetry, so we came up with our first quick tool, using the working title Cut The Line.
This soon grew to cover more and more telemetry entries. Once other types of software started to add telemetry - which was giving tracking a new name and supposed purpose - we added more categories that the now called Spybot Anti-Beacon covered. Browsers and Office Software for example.
At one point, a few antivirus companies made it into the press for their massive telemetry, and Patrick did some research on the antivirus market, showing that nearly all antivirus software tracks, and many could even be called spyware according to the Anti-Spyware Coalition, where the same antivirus vendors created a common definition of what spyware is (Safer-Networking was part of the working group on definitions back then). So Antivirus became another category covered by Spybot Anti-Beacon.
In recent years, the passive approach of Anti-Beacon - mostly using the software's own settings to disable telemetry - was supplemented by an active part called Live Monitor. While Live Monitor only monitors telemetry that wasn't stopped by disabled settings in the first place, it gives a good indication of how much telemetry would still be going on.