Disconnect Product Review • Privacy Shell

Founded in 2011, Disconnect is a privacy software company that functions on the basis that privacy should exist by default online. Disconnect offers only one product, also named Disconnect, that fills a wide breadth of online privacy needs. Take a look at this informative tutorial by David A. Cox on Disconnect below. A correction to the video, Disconnect Premium does offer its service on mobile devices. However, in a 2014 story by the Wall Street Journal Disconnect was removed from the Android Play Store as they do not allow software on their devices that interfere with other apps. Disconnect’s mobile application was interfering by trying to stop other apps from collecting data on users.

Disconnect

Disconnect is said to be a powerful security software that strives to give you control over your personal information. This software comes packaged in free and premium versions. Disconnect Free aims to block malware and tracking on your desktop, allow you to see who is tracking you, and keep your searching private. Upgrading to Disconnect Premium comes at a price of $5/month or $50/year. With Disconnect’s premium version users are able to bring tracking and malware blocking to their mobile devices as well. In addition, Premium offers the ability to identity theft and stop hackers and internet censorship by masking their VPN servers.

Disconnect often suffers by comparison to Ghostery by those who prefer the latter, feeling that Disconnect doesn’t offer the same level of protection. Ghostery has the advantage when it comes to blocking trackers, boasting the largest database of known trackers. While this criticism doesn’t take into account Disconnect’s VPN (Virtual Private Network) service, many would claim that it is all you are paying for, as VPN access is only available with Premium.

Check out further reviews of Disconnect from Forbes and The New York Times.

Originally published at privacyshell.com on September 17, 2015.