this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2023
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Firefox

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Between uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, ClearURLs, Decentraleyes, and Privacy Possum, I'm having a hard time deciding which ones I actually need and which ones I don't. Do they actually do different things, or are they largely the same?

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 years ago (1 children)

uBO is enough for me. If I need more than that, I'd probably just use something like Tor instead.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 years ago

This. Keep also in mind that Firefox already comes with an integrated anti-tracker: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-protection-firefox-desktop. So with that + uBlock Origin, you shouldn't need anything else.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The Firefox hardening project Arkenfox only recommends uBlock Origin. Everything else is redundant.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Note that this is targeted to arkenfox users, who by default use privacy.resistfingerprinting (unlike most users); without it, canvasblocker is also recommended.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Couldn't one just set privacy.resistfingerprinting to true instead of using another addon?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I suppose that I can be leaving some other (like disabling webgl), but in principle yes. The bad thing is that this setting can be annoying, it does things like change the time zone, force the light theme, always start in window, among many others.

[–] ink 2 points 2 years ago

it's strange for them to specifically choose the light prefers-color-scheme instead of ignoring it completely. So if a website has a dark default interface with an optional prefers-color-scheme:light, it will use the light interface ignoring the default.

Seems counterintuitive

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Oh, I didn't realize it had other side effects. Maybe I'll just keep using JShelter then.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago (2 children)

There is a great video from Techlore about hardening firefox, watch it and try some of the tips.

TLDR: uBlock Origin properly configured and some tweaks on firefox settings is good enough.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

hardening firefox

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.

[–] ink 2 points 2 years ago

bleh. more face than actual content (where text is actually better to relay these kind of information). annoying af.

The firefox sertting labels are self explanatory, no youtube video required. Anything more, there are tons of articles and discussions threads to suit your needs.

https://brainfucksec.github.io/firefox-hardening-guide

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Ublock Origin is enough as blocker (It's so complete in terms of filters. also it's recommended by Mozilla, and it's very light). Also Decentraleyes for some third-party contents. Other blockers do the same (they usually use the same blocking lists, too). I only have these two, along with setting Firefox tracking protection to Strict. I guess it's enough. (Though, you can see UBO wiki to have more advanced blockings.)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Clear urls is also a good one to have as sites like amazon has tracking data in the url

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Well all this things will not protect from something like creepjs fingerprinting

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I don't know what can prevent you from that 🤔 Maybe totally disabling JS?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

This tool can make harder to fingerprint u https://jshelter.org/

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

uBlock origin and CanvasBlocker/JShelter are probably enough. There's also uMatrix, which gives you more granular control over what to block or allow.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

Just Read the README.md of each one.
uBlock Origins
Privacy Badger
ClearUrls
Decentraleyes
Privacy Possum

TLDR : they all do different things.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

Generally, there's no need for anything other than uBlock Origin.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

I use noscript and whitelist javascript URLs per-origin, this coupled with uBlock means even the trackers uBO doesn't block usually don't work

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

Now commented on the built-in tracker protection in Firefox? Is it useless.

Personally I bank on uBo.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

"Depends".

Keep in mind that figuring out some information about your client is not unwanted, like screen size and device type (desktop vs mobile page and also desktop page orientation), browser and version for special handling code, or languages as defined in the browser to decide which language version to show.

The same readouts, of course, also enable tracking.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

What do you think of AdNauseam?