I really enjoy Firefox on Android as I can install a bunch of extensions and I find those extensions game changer, especially on the mobile.
One of my favorites are
- Libredirect - literally one of my favorite ones. Redirects popular sites to privacy focused frontends, like YouTube to Invidious, etc.
- uBlock Origin - I guess everyone knows this one
- Privacy Badger - blocks trackers
- Ghostery - blocks trackers, ads, scripts, etc.
What extensions do you guys use?
Ublock origin, Sponsor block, and NoScript
Sponsorblock’s been epic! Props to the coder and the contributors.
NoScript
I’ve been faithful to firefox almost since it’s been out thanks to this. I can’t imagine being on the internet with everything on a website on by default
A few years back NoScript was often recommended. I used it for a while but I’m not sure I did it right.
First time you go to a new website do you go through the process of allowing some scripts to make it usable?
Pretty much, yeah.
Dark Reader: Especially late at night white page background just burns out my retinas, no idea how I ever managed before.
It seems to do weird things to some websites where for me it also leaves text dark/black
Sometimes it doesn’t work, especially when it is a particularly weird colour palette, but it gets it right most of the time. In that case it does have the options to make some adjustments or just turn it of for that particular site.
Did you try to reduce the brightness of your monitor?
Sadly, even at the lowest brightness setting, with “extra dim” enabled, and the most intense blue blocking filter my phone will allow, most light colored backgrounds still illuminate the hell out of the room.
That isn’t the same thing…
•uBlock Origin - I guess everyone knows this one •Privacy Badger - blocks trackers •Ghostery - blocks trackers, ads, scripts, etc.
You don’t need all of that at once. Privacy Badger and Ghostery are redundant with uBlock Origin and Total Cookie Protection. Source: https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/wiki/4.1-Extensions#-dont-bother.
Also, Ghostery is kinda shady in terms of opt-out tracking and showing ads to its own users. I don’t know if they still do it, but my trust is already shattered and I see no reason to keep using Ghostery.
Consent-o-matic !
That’s the same as Ublock Origin - Anoyances list, you don’t need a separate addon for that.
Ublock Origin -> Settings -> External Filters -> Annoyances -> Tick all
Consent-o-Matic actually declines the cookies but that just hides the banner
I need to try consent I magic then because at least one website has had the banner blocked but didn’t let me move the screen or anything.
Chameleon. My user agent changes every 30 seconds. Makes attempts to track me basically useless.
Changing your user agent will not stop you being tracked. Browser fingerprinting can work with heaps of different signals, and is very difficult to block.
It means I’m being tracked for 30 seconds. So basically useless tracking.
Chameleon doesn’t just change the user agent. It changes a bunch of stuff that’s used to break fingerprinting. Of course you have a fingerprint, but it constantly changes so that the data they collect is so short lived that its useless to them and therefore very useful to me.
- Go here: https://fingerprint.com/demo/
- Note your fingerprint ID
- Wait whatever time you want
- Try again
- It’s the same ID
You can try to fool it with a VPN, change country, etc but it doesn’t work. Fingerprinting is very strong these days.
That website is marketing bullshit. It doesn’t tell you if you fingerprint “ID” is unique. If can just spit out the same fingerprint for millions of users, and it looks impressive but its totally worthless as a fingerprint.
Try again with some service that isn’t trying to sell you their product
https://abrahamjuliot.github.io/creepjs/index.html
Your extension might make you MORE finger-printable. Advanced fingerprinting scripts can detect lies told by extensions.
https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/wiki/3.3-Overrides-[To-RFP-or-Not]#-fingerprinting
If you’re actually interested in reducing your fingerprint you should read the arkenfox guide which leverages built in features from firefox. You’ll see very quickly that if someone wants to fingerprint you it’s trivial and there’s little you can do short of TOR.
more reading: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/desktop-browsers/?h=fingerprint#anti-fingerprinting
Again, they can fingerprint me. Buy their fingerprint is useless because it constantly changes.
You misunderstand. They’re calculating a fingerprint that identifies you across sessions despite you changing up a bunch of values on your browser with an extension because that’s all highly detectable. They know it’s junk data they don’t use it. It actually is worse because you stop blending in with the crowd.
You’re better off blending in then trying to look unique with every visit. The latter is a flawed concept.
Read the arkenfox guide they get into it. Most extensions just reduce your ability to blend in to the crowd and thus should be avoided.