TY - GEN
T1 - A Usability Evaluation of Privacy Add-ons for Web Browsers
AU - Corner, Matthew
AU - Dogan, Huseyin
AU - Mylonas, Alexios
AU - Djabri, Francis
PY - 2019/7/4
Y1 - 2019/7/4
N2 - The web has improved our life and has provided us with more opportunities to access information and do business. Nonetheless, due to the prevalence of trackers on websites, web users might be subject to profiling while accessing the web, which impairs their online privacy. Privacy browser add-ons, such as DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials, Ghostery and Privacy Badger, extend the privacy protection that the browsers offer by default, by identifying and blocking trackers. However, the work that focuses on the usability of the privacy add-ons, as well as the users’ awareness, feelings, and thoughts towards them, is rather limited. In this work, we conducted usability evaluations by utilising System Usability Scale and Think-Aloud Protocol on three popular privacy add-ons, i.e., DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials, Ghostery and Privacy Badger. Our work also provides insights into the users’ awareness of online privacy and attitudes towards the abovementioned privacy add-ons; in particular trust, concern, and control. Our results suggest that the participants feel safer and trusting of their respective add-on. It also uncovers areas for add-on improvement, such as a more visible toolbar logo that offers visual feedback, easy access to thorough help resources, and detailed information on the trackers that have been found.
AB - The web has improved our life and has provided us with more opportunities to access information and do business. Nonetheless, due to the prevalence of trackers on websites, web users might be subject to profiling while accessing the web, which impairs their online privacy. Privacy browser add-ons, such as DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials, Ghostery and Privacy Badger, extend the privacy protection that the browsers offer by default, by identifying and blocking trackers. However, the work that focuses on the usability of the privacy add-ons, as well as the users’ awareness, feelings, and thoughts towards them, is rather limited. In this work, we conducted usability evaluations by utilising System Usability Scale and Think-Aloud Protocol on three popular privacy add-ons, i.e., DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials, Ghostery and Privacy Badger. Our work also provides insights into the users’ awareness of online privacy and attitudes towards the abovementioned privacy add-ons; in particular trust, concern, and control. Our results suggest that the participants feel safer and trusting of their respective add-on. It also uncovers areas for add-on improvement, such as a more visible toolbar logo that offers visual feedback, easy access to thorough help resources, and detailed information on the trackers that have been found.
KW - Browser add-ons
KW - Privacy
KW - Usability
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85069707928&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-23535-2_33
DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-23535-2_33
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85069707928
SN - 9783030235345
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 442
EP - 458
BT - Design, User Experience, and Usability. Practice and Case Studies - 8th International Conference, DUXU 2019, Held as Part of the 21st HCI International Conference, HCII 2019, Proceedings
A2 - Marcus, Aaron
A2 - Wang, Wentao
PB - Springer Nature
T2 - 8th International Conference on Design, User Experience, and Usability, DUXU 2019, held as part of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCI International 2019
Y2 - 26 July 2019 through 31 July 2019
ER -