uBlock Origin is the must have.
Personally I also use Dark Reader, NoScript, View Page Source and User-Agent Switcher.
Privacy
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
NoScript is duplicative with ublock medium mode, I am amazed people are still using it. It hasn’t been relevant for 5+ years by my estimation. Why use two addons when one you’re already using does it better?
https://github.com/gorhill/ublock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium-mode
Roughly similar to using Adblock Plus with many filter lists + NoScript with 1st-party scripts/frames automatically trusted.
Because I'm used to noscript, I've tried using uBlock in stricter than default settings but found it hard to get into their flag system.
I do not trust 1st party by default in noscript and am pleasantly surprised anytime a site works without js.
The why is browser fingerprinting. Which Google started using as of January to track everyone.
https://abrahamjuliot.github.io/creepjs/
So if you go to ANY page with Google trackers, even in private mode, Google knows.
- ublock origin, first last and if necessary only extension you really need
- dark reader
- youtube shorts block - converts shorts links into regular video player with actual fucking seek/volume controls
- youtube sponsor block - I pay for my bandwidth, I decide what gets downloaded.
- privacy badger
Doesn't Firefox have reader mode with dark mode built in? Don't get me wrong, I find that functionality indispensable, but I didn't think it required a plugin.
uBlock Origin Firefox Multi-Account Contaniners (and then use them) If you use some kind of webmail like google, hotmail, yahoo, then: Webmail Ad Blocker Remove FBclid and UTM
Optional Dark Reader Enhancer for Youtube
uBlock Origin
Sponsorblock
Multi account containers
Password manager like Bitwarden
Bypass Paywalls Clean
Do not use cloud password managers. If you can, self host your bitwarden instance.
My suggestion is KeePass (XC on PC and DX on mobile) with syncthing. It's very flexible and useful for stuff beyond passwords, like ids, notes, emails etc
uBlock Origin and nothing else. The more extensions, the more unique you're fingerprint will be and the bigger your attack surface.
Dont forget SponsorBlock if you spend any time on youtube
Sponsorblock is magic. I don't know how it doesn't have trolls ruining it.
Users voting on whether a segment is good or bad. I always give a thumbs up to the segments that were well-defined and a thumbs-down to segments that cut off half a sentence unnecessarily etc.
I've never seen the option to vote, maybe it's easier on desktop. I'm on revanced
I'm not gonna lie, I'm a little bit of an extensions hoarder, which is bad for fingerprinting 😣, but I seriously do use the extra ones.
Vital:
uBlock - obviously, some people even suggest to only use this extension and nothing else to reduce fingerprinting. Make sure to enable those filters! Also check out the advanced mode, eliminates the need for NoScript.
Not Vital But Really Good To Have:
LibRedirect - Never worry again about visiting the original social media site, you can immediately be redirected to a proxy version of the site that doesn't stalk you. Great when I'm forced to click a Twitter, Reddit, Youtube, etc. link. Unfortunately, some proxy services are dead (Instagram, Tiktok, Invidious is always under threat, etc.)
Bitwarden - Password manager
Dark Reader - Nice, especially on fingerprint resisting browsers like Librewolf that don't let your browser/sites see your system settings to automatically pick the dark mode of a website. Have singed my eyes a couple times.
For Language Learners (like me):
Yomitan - The GOAT of tools, a popup dictionary that can be used to instantly look up the definition of a word in your target language, and connects with Anki, a flashcard app. I use it for making vocabulary cards from Japanese media I consume. Literally all the other resources are meant to be paired with this.
Asbplayer - Lets you add subtitles to whatever media you're streaming and makes the text selectable. Paired with Yomitan, you can easily make Anki flashcards from the TV/Movies/Videos you watch.
Lap Clipboard Inserter - By using a clipboard extension with Textractor, you can hook a game/visual novel and auto-copy all the game text to a webpage, which can be paired with Yomitan (you guessed it!) to look up words. You have to turn it on for individual pages, so don't worry about it constantly stalking you.
Neat, But Random:
Mastodon Streetpass - Helps you figure out if a person is on Mastodon by looking for a custom link on their site. Collects a list of them and tells you the date that it found the account. Basically just browse as usual and it will passively collect a list.
A fellow Japanese learner and VN enjoyer! Are you on Linux? I ran into issues with Lap Clipboard Inserter not capturing any clipboard events when the window was in the background, and I think it's an issue with Wayland, since all firefox-based browsers had the same issue but chromium-based ones didn't
Category "how the hell isn't this included by default" :
- Copy Plain Text: Adds an option in the right click menu to copy the selected text as plain text, without formatting
- Copy Link Text : Adds an option in the right click menu to copy the text of a link
- Markdown Reader: Show formatted markdown. I tried several extensions for this and this is the one I prefer personally. It has an index panel on the left which is sooo useful.
Category "Preserving your mental health online" :
- uBlock Origin: You really need to block those ads
- Consent-O-Matic: Never see a cookie pop-up again in your life (it auto accepts or refuse in your place).
- SponsorBlock: Skips Youtube sponsorships. You can define which ones you want to skip and which you want to watch (paid ads, self promo, etc)
- Return Youtube Dislike: Show the number of dislikes on videos. It's not a real number, it's extrapolated based on how many people with the app have clicked dislike.
- Youtube No Translate: Keeps titles, descriptions and audio tracks in their original language
Category "Usefull" :
- KeePassXC-Browser: To access your password database from your browser
- Whatever fingerprinting protection you can find (Canvas, Fonts, WebGL, etc.. half those I used have been pulled, haven't found a replacement for all of them)
Category "Would be nice if..." :
- A user agent switcher... if you want all websites to block you 😑
- NoScript: Block javascript and create custom rules to allow it only when and where you want. Or the reverse. It was great a few years ago but I've stopped using it because websites require allowing more and more otherwise nothing works and it's hell can we cancel javascript please?
- Dark Reader: Dark mode for all websites. Can make some websites unreadable, but you can turn it off for that website. Makes everything much slower though so I don't use it.
Pro-tip: you may not need Consent-O-Matic. There are uBlock Origin cookie banner filters that you can enable (even though they break some websites, even if it's rare)
Thanks, that's nice to know!
But Consent-O-Matic does not break websites (very rarely so), so it's better than uBlock in that specific area.
BTW for plain text, ctrl+shift+V pastes as plain text.
For copying link text if you hold alt and drag you can select text without activating the link, then ctrl+C as usual.
- ublock origin
- dark reader
- firenvim
- vimium
- containers
For android mobile I use Ironfox.
https://gitlab.com/ironfox-oss/IronFox
Its a fork of the now discontinued Mull browser.
- uBlock Origin
- NoScript
- JShelter
- CSS Exfil Protection
- Libredirect
- Indie Wiki Buddy
I also sometimes use the IceCat extensions, too:
- LibreJS
- LibrifyJS
- Reveal hidden HTML
- Searxes' Third-party Request blocker
- Workarounds for nonfree JS
ublock origin and umatrix, anything else only makes you more fingerprintable
ublock origin, nutensor(umatrix), twp, bypass paywalls clean, dark reader, vimfx
Surprised no one posted this link: https://awesome-privacy.xyz/security-tools/browser-extensions
Great resource btw, check out the website for other tools.
It's not about privacy per se but Tridactyl
"A Vim-like interface for Firefox, inspired by Vimperator/Pentadactyl." because, like Userscripts - Tampermonkey, you can basically redesign any website.
A basic privacy oriented solution I made was using autocmd
https://tridactyl.xyz/build/static/docs/modules/_src_excmds_.html#autocmd to redirect YouTube content to my local https://github.com/user234683/youtube-local and that works even with embeds.