Products · Broad category
Privacy tools
Raised as a usability problem by 15 people on Hacker News over 14 years (2013–2026), in 15 threads.
This is a broad category rather than one product, so its issues aren't ranked on the home page.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Protecting privacy requires complicated steps that ordinary users find impracticalUnreviewed
20132026- Hardening privacy requires a huge, time-consuming technical setup that non-experts cannot complete2025-11-25
- Protecting privacy requires too many complicated, impractical steps for ordinary users2022-05-29
- Privacy protection is hard to set up and requires technical knowledge like Linux and hardening browsers2016-10-24
Blocking scripts breaks sites, and finding what to allow needs technical savvyUnreviewed
20132026- Blocks critical site scripts, breaking forms and checkouts without warning until late2022-06-09
- Hard to tell which scripts to allow; blocked items load many more2016-03-06
- Blocking scripts breaks sites confusingly; fixing needs technical savvy to find what to allow2015-08-06
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 15 complaints
- Cannot find a way to contact the service on its website2026-08-17
- Hardening privacy requires a huge, time-consuming technical setup that non-experts cannot complete2025-11-25
- Sites break confusingly, and the user forgets Privacy Badger is the cause2025-09-29
- Blocks critical site scripts, breaking forms and checkouts without warning until late2022-06-09
- Protecting privacy requires too many complicated, impractical steps for ordinary users2022-05-29
- Settings page won't open; user needs a workaround using the location bar2021-08-24
- Breaks websites and slows browsing, so users blame Firefox2020-08-23
- Ctrl-click is hijacked to navigate same tab; middle-click does nothing; then error page2019-09-22
- Privacy blockers break sites for non-technical users and their breakage UI is hard to use2019-03-21
- Privacy protection is hard to set up and requires technical knowledge like Linux and hardening browsers2016-10-24
- Non-technical users must find plugin settings and uncheck a box to get privacy protection2016-08-23
- Hard to tell which scripts to allow; blocked items load many more2016-03-06
- Blocking scripts breaks sites confusingly; fixing needs technical savvy to find what to allow2015-08-06
- Stacking privacy extensions breaks websites, including banking and bill payment2014-05-23
- Privacy tools grew more complex while keeping a lousy user experience2013-06-22