About this episode

Henry interviews JP Schmetz about ad blockers, privacy, and the future of search.

Most ad blockers start by blocking everything—then you become tech support for friends & family when pages break. Henry interviewed JP Schmetz, founder of Brave Search and CEO of Ghostery, about making trackers visible, why there are only 3 search indexes in the world, reinventing the open web with AI, and how to avoid becoming "the family CTO." 🔗 SOURCES & LINKS • Ghostery: https://www.ghostery.com/ • Who Tracks Me Database: https://whotracks.me/ • Ghostery Private Search: https://www.ghostery.com/private-search • Brave Search: https://search.brave.com/ ⏱️ TIMESTAMPS 00:00:00 INTRO 00:01:32 ORIGINS WITH GHOSTERY 00:03:15 SEARCH ENGINES + BROWSERS 00:06:32 GHOSTERY'S BROWSER EXTENSION 00:09:09 THE PRIVACY DISCONNECT 00:13:02 REAL WORLD IMPACTS 00:16:03 PRIVACY VARIES BY LOCATION 00:16:47 PAGE BLOCKING + BREAKING 00:24:06 ADAPTATION + TRUST 00:28:48 ROLES AT GHOSTERY + BRAVE 00:29:22 OPEN SOURCE 00:30:38 BRAVE SHIELDS OR GHOSTERY? 00:32:36 SUGGESTED CONFIGURATIONS 00:40:13 WHOTRACKS.ME 00:44:30 WHAT IS A TRACKER? 00:47:39 WHAT ARE THE INCENTIVES? 00:50:31 DOES BLOCKING = NO DATA SHARING? 00:53:50 THE INVESTIGATIVE PROCESS 00:57:27 PRIVATE SEARCH 01:00:11 META SEARCH VS…

People in this episode

Host: Henry

Guest: JP Schmetz

Topics covered

• ad blockers
• privacy
• search engines
• tracking
• technology

Keywords

• ad blockers
• privacy
• search engines
• Ghostery
• Brave Search
• tracking

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Brave Search, Ghostery, Ghostery Private Search, Who Tracks Me Database

More episodes of Techlore Talks

• Firefox AI, User Choice, and Partnering with Anthropic: Mozilla VP Interview · April 25, 2026 · 1h 4m
• Bitwarden on Zero Knowledge Encryption, Open Source Trust, and the LastPass Breach · April 18, 2026 · 1h 2m
• Age Verification Laws and Free Software: A Legal Expert Tells Us What's Actually at Stake · April 14, 2026 · 58 min
• Organic Maps Co-Founder on Building a Privacy-First Google Maps Alternative | Alexander Borsuk · April 11, 2026 · 1h 5m
• Telecom Insider Explains What Your Carrier Actually Sees (Cape Interview) · March 28, 2026 · 1h 31m
• Why This Linux Distro Is Growing Faster Than Ever (Zorin OS Interview) · March 21, 2026 · 1h 12m

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Techlore Talks podcast page.