BannerBye vsGhostery
An ad blocker with two million users and a consent feature bolted on. Or one tool that only refuses — and shows you it did.
Free on Chrome & Firefox · €1.99 on iPhone & iPad
Ghostery is the serious one. Two million users on Chrome, a 4.7 rating from more than nineteen thousand reviews, open source under GPL-3.0, and a Munich company (Ghostery GmbH) behind it that has shipped a tracker blocker since 2009. In 2023 it added Never-Consent: recognise the cookie pop-up, click reject, and send the Global Privacy Control signal. Its pitch — "express dissent, don't just hide the banner" — is the right pitch. It's ours too.
The difference is where the refusal happens and what else is in the box. Ghostery answers the banner after recognising it, with the same open Autoconsent rules BannerBye runs as its third layer. BannerBye answers before the banner exists, with a complete IAB TCF reject string at document start — and it does nothing else. No ad blocker, no crash reporter, no statistics programme.
Side by side
| BannerBye | Ghostery | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | One thing: refuses cookie banners | Ad & tracker blocker; cookie consent is one feature (Never-Consent) |
| How it refuses | IAB TCF reject string + GPC at document start, then CMP handlers, Autoconsent and a pattern fallback | Autoconsent rules click reject after the pop-up is recognised; GPC header |
| Sends IAB TCF reject string before render | Yes · verify it | — |
| Sends GPC signal | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | Yes · MIT | Yes · GPL-3.0 |
| Telemetry | None. Reports only when you press the button | Crash reporting (Sentry); opt-in WhoTracks.Me contribution |
| Platforms | Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari (iOS, iPadOS, macOS) | Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera, Safari (iOS, macOS), own Android browser |
| Shows its work | Per-site proof in the popup · live demo · public fix log with times | Tracker counts per page |
| Users (Chrome Web Store) | Small, growing | 2,000,000 · 4.7 from 19,300 reviews |
| Price | Free (Chrome, Firefox, Edge) · one-time €1.99 on Safari | Free; optional paid Contributor plan |
Based on the Ghostery source (github.com/ghostery/ghostery-extension, package.json and src/background/never-consent), its Chrome Web Store listing and ghostery.com, 5 October 2026.
The honest take
If you want an ad blocker, Ghostery is a good one, and Never-Consent is a real feature, not a checkbox: it uses the same open rule set we do, it sends GPC, and it's maintained by people who have been at this for fifteen years. Of every tool on these comparison pages, it's the one whose pitch we'd sign.
Where we part ways is scope and timing. Ghostery recognises the pop-up and then clicks; BannerBye hands the site a complete reject before it can draw one, and you can read that string decoded or watch a real banner lose. And BannerBye is only this. No filter lists, no crash reporter, no statistics programme, no company that also sells a search engine and a browser — just the refusal, open source, with a public log of what broke and how fast it was fixed. Brussels is still debating whether browsers should be allowed to say no for you. This works today.
Add to Chrome — freeQuestions about this comparison
Does Ghostery reject cookie banners?
Yes. Ghostery's Never-Consent feature, added in 2023, recognises the consent platform behind a pop-up and clicks the reject option for you. It is built on DuckDuckGo's open Autoconsent rules, the same rule set BannerBye uses as its third layer. The difference is what happens before that: BannerBye also hands the site a complete IAB TCF reject string at document start, so on sites that speak the framework the banner never has to be clicked at all.
Does Ghostery send a GPC signal?
Yes. Since Never-Consent, Ghostery sets the Sec-GPC header and navigator.globalPrivacyControl. BannerBye sends the same signal. What Ghostery doesn't send is the IAB TCF reject string — the answer most European consent platforms actually look for before deciding whether to show you a banner.
Is Ghostery open source?
Yes, under GPL-3.0, published by Ghostery GmbH in Munich. BannerBye is open source under MIT. Both can be audited; both are built in public.
Does Ghostery collect data?
Ghostery ships a crash reporter (Sentry) and an opt-in anonymous contribution system for its WhoTracks.Me statistics. Both are disclosed and the contribution is off unless you turn it on. BannerBye has no reporting of any kind: nothing leaves the browser unless you press Report broken site, and the report contains the hostname and the banner's HTML — never your browsing.
Should I run BannerBye next to Ghostery?
You can. If you use Ghostery for ad blocking, keep it. Switch its Never-Consent off and let BannerBye handle consent, or leave both on — BannerBye answers first, at document start, and Ghostery's click never has to fire. Two tools racing to click the same button is harmless; two tools both talking to the page is just more code running.
Bye byecookie banners.
Add it to your browser. Set your privacy once. Then forget cookie banners exist.
No account. No tracking. Free on Chrome and Firefox.