Web-browsers, add-ons/plugins and privacy

[Like Ra]

Tips and ideas for making your Internet presence more private and secure by properly using and tweaking your favourite web browsers.

Related threads:

What do you think about VPNs?

[Like Ra]

Voted for both Chrome and Firefox, though, I use Firefox (on all platforms) pretty much all the time (95%). I use Chrome for accessing Mega, eBay publisher and if sites are not compatible with Firefox.

Yes, Chrome is faster when you have less, than a dozen of open tabs. The latest Firefox (104-105) is perfect if you have hundreds.

On my main desktop, I use various profiles for both Firefox and Chrome: for my work, for general browsing, for kinky browsing, for testing, etc.

[Like Ra]

Switch to Firefox. Chrome will prevent Ad blockers beginning September.

https://news.knowyourmeme.com/news/googl...pportunity

[Like Ra]

Google Teller - a funny plugin, which make noise every time your browser sends something to Google. Do not use it on Youtube!!!

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox...ign=github
https://github.com/berthubert/googerteller

[Penguin]

I hardly ever use Chrome these days.  Haven't for more than 10 years.

The thing that really makes Firefox stand out, is the NoScript Extension for Firefox.  It's a script-blocker that's managed by a per-site and/or per-domain whitelist.

Since NoScript runs off a whitelist, when you're dialing up a new site, the default action blocks ALL scripting.

This can be a real PITA sometimes.  Since curst near everybody is using javascript the way people used HTML 25 years ago, scripting is ubiquitous, and without a whitelist entry for your destination, a good chunk of its functionality just won't be there. 

But OTOH, when some "link-shortened" URL, or an URL from a domain you're not familiar with, sends you to a malicious website, which has personally happened to me on several occasions, the malware they're shoving at you through the open browser port on your firewall won't execute.

This cuts your attacker off at the knees.

The gain in security, especially when it's layered atop a network-aware A/V program and the right habits (as in, "never ever download any unsolicited executable, no matter what the assurances are"), is magnificent.  Compromise through your browser goes from "almost inevitable" to "extremely rare".

Without a whitelist script blocker, sooner or later you'll get nailed, because some 3rd party site, run up by people whom the owners of the site you're connecting to don't even know, is hosting malware.  The proof of concept exploit is now more than 2 decades old, so the attack technique itself is very old news.  Exploitation by the badguys is almost as venerable.

The reason I avoid Chrome, is that up until just 3 years ago, Chrome simply did not support NoScript.

Fairly early in its history (2005), the Chrome developers asked the guy who wrote NoScript, Giorgio Maone, if he couldn't run up a version for Chrome.  He took a close look at the way the design was laid out, and said it simply could not be done.  I'm not quoting anything the Chrome devs wrote; this was in Maone's own blog.

Apparently, this state of affairs changed just over 3 years ago.

So if you do use Chrome, by all means install the NoScript Chrome Extension.

But should Google kill the extension by a design change to Chrome, keep in mind that the original design was for Firefox, and that the Firefox design team isn't really in the advertising business, as, of course, Google always was.

[Like Ra]

The thing that really makes Firefox stand out, is the NoScript Extension for Firefox.  It's a script-blocker that's managed by a per-site and/or per-domain whitelist.

Totally agree here!