Yesterday I asked you guys what your favorite addons are. Here is a compiled list plus some of my own recommendations:
Essential:
uBlock Origin (ad + malicious content blocker)
Consent-o-matic (auto-decline cookies + tracking) recommended by @[email protected]
Privacy:
Multi-Account-Containers (isolate tabs and websites) recommended by @[email protected]
Temporary Containers (like Multi-Account-Containers, deletes cache & cookies automatically)
uMatrix (advanced content blocker)
ClearURLs recommended by @[email protected]
LocalCDN (use local frameworks) recommended by @[email protected]
CookieAutoDelete recommended by @[email protected]
YouTube:
SponsorBlock recommended by @[email protected]
DeArrow (replace obnoxious thumbnails) recommended by @[email protected]
Customization:
DarkReader recommended by @[email protected]
Midnight Lizard (like DarkReader with more customization)
nightTab (customizable startpage)
Sidebery (Tab list in sidebar) recommended by @[email protected]
Misc
Bypass Paywalls Clean recommended by @[email protected]
Most of the “privacy” extensions do little to nothing to protecy your privacy as of today, due to them either being abandoned, replaced by features integrated in ublock origin or just not relevant anymore because of the actual fingerprinting strategies employed at the current time.
And it is not “random uhh acktshually🤓 lemmy user” who’s saying this, but the wiki section of the arkenfox user.js project. https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/wiki/4.1-Extensions
Installing them only expands the attack surface of your browser, consumes resources and makes you more fingerprintable.
They are remnants of a time when you needed a full day and a degree in CS to properly set Firefox for privacy. Luckily, things are more straightforward nowdays.
Temporary containers:
uMatrix:
ClearURLs:
LocalCDN:
Cookie autodelete
Consent-o-matic:
No user.js reference here, but I expressed my doubts about it in the comments yesterday https://feddit.it/comment/6471917
Bypass paywalls clean:
While it’s amazing, it’s also available as a filter list, from the same author
In short, don’t bother with more extensions. Just add ublock filters when/if needed, but this is one case where you get 80% of the result with 20% of the effort (FF strict privacy protection mode, ublock origin, switch search engine)
Also, weirdly enough, nobody mentioned the bitwarden extension. Thanks to that (but not only), they manage to provide an amazing password manager service for free, the paid options are cheap, it’s full featured, well integrated with the browser, open source and self hostable.
Wow, thank you for your extensive review. So LibreWolf or Firefox with Arkenfox’ config + uBlockOrigin is more than enough I guess.
No problem, glad I could help!
Tbh vanilla Firefox + uBlock configured as advised in that user.js wiki page linked above is more than enough.
Librewolf is preferred but it’s something you need to follow and be aware of. It’s an indiependent fork of a browser, and as such you really don’t want it to be discontinued without you noticing.
Which is why I would advise librewolf over Firefox only if you know you’ll stay updated about the privacy “scene”, if you’re setting it up on someone else’s computer, on a work device or you just want a “set it and forget it approach”, definitely go with vanilla Firefox. Again, 80/20 rule.
About Arkenfox’s user.js I remember reading it was meant to be a starting point, not to be used as it is provided but to be customized for it to suit your needs.
Personally I always thought it was not worth to invest the time, but I guess it’s a good learning experience if you’re interested in it.
Is there a replacement for uMatrix tho? I still use it because I haven’t found another extension that allows me to disable cookies, JS, and iframes per domain as easily as uMatrix does. And despite being unmaintained since 2019 it still works surprisingly well.
Cookies (3rd and 1st party) can be disabled per site from your browser settings in any modern browser.
JS can be disabled per site using uBlock origin for sure, and I’m pretty sure you can disable iframes as well
I admit I’ve never used uMatrix, but from what I know ublock is the successor of the project (and is considered the state-of-the-art adblocking software), so I’d assume you can do everything uMatrix can and more.
I suggest looking up some tutorials for uBlock to get the grasp of the possibility of the software