Pretty sure they got sold or something a bit back. There was also this: https://lifehacker.com/ad-blocking-extension-ghostery-actual...

IIRC, Ghostery is a company that used to work with advertisers in the past (when it was owned by a company called Evidon). It also collects data from its users.

uBlock Origin is a low footprint (compared to other ad/tracker blockers) extension primarily maintained by one person who refuses to even take donations for it. Scroll down to the "About" section on the GitHub page [1] and see this Wiki page on donations [2], which at this point in time states:

> Why don't you accept donations?

> I don't want the administrative workload coming with donations. I don't want the project to become in need of funding in any way: no dedicated home page + no forum = no cost = no need for funding. I want to be free to move onto something else if ever I get tired working on these projects (no donations = no expectations).

> Have a thought for the maintainers of the various lists. These lists are everything. This can't be emphasized enough.

Also see uBlock Origin's manifesto. [3]

For me, using uBlock Origin along with Privacy Badger [4] from EFF is a good combination.

[1]: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock

[2]: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Why-don't-you-accept-...

[3]: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/master/MANIFESTO.md

[4]: https://www.eff.org/privacybadger