MAT alternatives
Looking for an alternative tool to replace MAT? During the review of MAT we looked at other open source tools. Based on their category, tags, and text, these are the ones that have the best match.
Top 3
- Decentraleyes (local CDN emulation for privacy)
- Privacy Badger (privacy protection for browsers)
- hBlock (ad blocking and tracker/malware protection)
These tools are ranked as the best alternatives to MAT.
Alternatives (by score)
Decentraleyes
Introduction
Most websites consist of HTML show the structure of a website. Together with CSS for styling, and JavaScript for interactive functionality, the website can provide value for its visitors. Some of the used JavaScript libraries are heavy on bandwidth, so website owner may use a content delivery network (CDN). The primary goal for a CDN is to get data closer to the end-user, which results in faster downloads and increasing the performance of the website.
Some common JavaScript libraries are used on many websites. As not every single website creator can pay the costs of a CDN, bigger companies might actually sponsor bandwidth on their CDN edge servers. While this is great from a cost perspective, it also introduces a privacy concern. The owner of the CDN can exactly see what websites a user is visiting by looking at the related requests to the CDN and the related referrer. This is where Decentraleyes comes into place, by intercepting requests to content delivery networks (CDN).
Project details
Decentraleyes is written in JavaScript.
Strengths and weaknesses
- + More than 1000 GitHub stars
- + The source code of this software is available
Typical usage
- Privacy enhancement
Privacy Badger
Introduction
Privacy Badger provides protection against website visitor trackers. These trackers come in the form of beacons or invisible pixels and have the goal to collect information about the browser. This data is often shared by third parties and used to create a profile of a particular browser. As minor differences for each user may lead to an individual user, these third parties may even link some of the data to the related individual. Tools like Privacy Badger do not provide guarantees that they block everything, yet can decrease the amount of data greatly.
Project details
Privacy Badger is written in JavaScript.
Strengths and weaknesses
- + More than 50 contributors
- + The source code of this software is available
- + Supported by a large company
- + Well-known tool
- - Many provided pull requests are still open
Typical usage
- Privacy enhancement
hBlock
Introduction
For the privacy-aware users, tools like hBlock can be helpful to block malicious domains, malware, advertisements, and trackers. Trackers could be pixels added to websites to track which pages you visited, which might invade your privacy.
Project details
hBlock is written in shell script.
Strengths and weaknesses
- + Used language is shell script
- + The source code of this software is available
Typical usage
- Malware protection
- Privacy enhancement
- Provide anonymity
Algo VPN
Introduction
Algo VPN allows you to run your own VPN service using common cloud providers. Most devices do not need client software, as it uses generic VPN components. For security reasons, Algo VPN supports only IKEv2 using strong cryptographic protocols (AES-GCM, SHA2, and P-256) and WireGuard. It can block advertisements, tunnel traffic via SSH, and helps to automate configuration.
Project details
Algo VPN is written in Python.
Strengths and weaknesses
- + More than 50 contributors
- + More than 9000 stars
- + The source code of this software is available
- - No releases on GitHub available
Typical usage
- Data encryption
- Privacy enhancement
Metagoofil
Introduction
Metagoofil will perform a search in Google based on the given domain name. Any public documents will be downloaded and analyzed. For this task it uses libraries like Hachoir, PdfMiner, and others. Useful details include username, software versions, hostnames, etc.
File types: pdf, doc, xls, ppt, docx, pptx, xlsx
Project details
Metagoofil is written in Python.
Strengths and weaknesses
- + The source code of this software is available
Typical usage
- Information gathering
- Penetration testing
BleachBit
Introduction
With the help of BleachBit, the system can be kept clean and increase privacy in the process.
Items that can be cleaned by BleachBit include:
- Browser cache
- Cookies
- Internet history
- Temporary files
- Log files
The tool can 'shred' files to ensure the data can no longer be retrieved, opposed to just deleting it.
Project details
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