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hey - trying to switch from Chrome to Firefox, what are your recommended extensions and/or quality of life addins, etc?
3 years ago by SirToxicAvenger to c/asklemmy
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Same, all you really need. Maybe also password manager extensions for the added phishing protection
Yeah, I didn't include my Enpass extension, as it's more like a plug-in.
I also excluded TamperMonkey because I solely use it to sell my Steam cards and become filthy rich. Already 34 cents into my first million.
And last but not least: an extension that auto-upvotes YT videos from my subscribed channels because I'm too lazy to do it manually and YT can't be bothered to assign a key to it.
Sponsorblock for YouTube.
Javascript disabler to get around many paywalls.
Dark Reader is entirely client side, so it shouldn't affect load times.
Yes, I suppose if their computer is a decade or two old, it might have an impact on their render times.
This is my experience as well. Noticable slowdown after installing it. But IMO, it's still worth it.
honestly it's fine if you're generating different passwords for every service and you're just storing the less important ones there for convenience.
ah nice I was wondering how to do that. got a lot of passwords in chrome
Used to use lastpass before they became paid. I haven't even remembered that until I read your comment. Bitwarden is great.
dark reader looks very useful, thanks!!
Bypass Paywalls Clean is fantastic, need to install from xpi though
lol that installation was crazy simple! thanks!!
Also any sort of privacy redirector, specifically to go to nitter instead of xitter, is a must have
Something not so far mentioned is Tree Style Tab.
If you habitually have a lot of tabs open, you'll probably know how annoying it is finding things when each page title has been condensed down to 4-5 characters. On widescreen displays (especially 16:9), vertical pixels are also a lot more precious, while horizontal ones are plentiful.
For me (3840ร2160 display, 200% scale), its vertical tab sidebar fits about 30 tabs before needing a scrollbar, and you get a full width title for each and every one.
It can be a bit of an adjustment at first, but I've been using this since the pre-WebExtensions days (since around Firefox 4.0), it's definitely one of my must-haves.
Can't recommend TreeStyleTabs enough!
Not only does it trade off precious vertical space for plentiful horizontal space, but also the tabs get organized hierarchical, so when searching and opening multiple tabs , the tabs get grouped naturally
First of all, install Betterfox, it is not an extension per se, but a set of custom settings. Betterfox offers a lot of fixes, including removed Mozilla telemetry, increased speed, smooth scrolling, privacy protections, etc.
I believe, Betterfox can also be used on Floorp (In case their website doesn't work, here's a Github link - https://github.com/Floorp-Projects), which is a Firefox-based browser with Vivaldi/Opera-like interface. Sounds neat, but i didn't really test it yet.
In case you feel too lazy to install Betterfox/Arkenfox/other user.js modifications, you can use Librewolf instead. It is a version of Firefox with bundled Arkenfox and uBlock Origin.
uMatrix, uBlock Origin, and a mixture of add-ons from Dig Deeper's list are a must for privacy. Also, i recommend reading his other blogposts about software, too. Especially this one
If configuring Redirector is too confusing for you, you can use LibRedirect, it can automatically redirect YouTube to Invidious and Piped, Fandom to Breezewiki, Google to SearX, Twitter to Nitter, and so on, so you won't have to bother with popups and ads.
For password managers, use Bitwarden, if you want to have your passwords synced in the cloud, or KeepassXC, if you want to store them locally.
Block The Rich is a fun little extension for those who are tired of reading billionaire spam, but i did not test it.
Instance Assistant Is made to improve Lemmy and Kbin experience, but, once again, i did not test it.
Also, do not use Google, Bing, Yandex or Brave as your search engine, instead switch to DuckDuckGo, Mojeek, and 4Get or SearX
Originally, i too, have thought that Mozilla's telemetry would be limited to only technical aspects, such as crash reports. I mean, they are using privacy as their main selling point. But of course, that was a lie. Read this. You may think that only Spyware Watchdog and Dig Deeper dislike Mozilla, but no. By searching around, it's possible to find information about this on countless sources. And again, why do projects like LibreWolf and Arkenfox exist, if Firefox's tracking is not an issue?
Firefox makes unsolicited connections on startup, uses Google Analytics, and connects to their website when opening every single page. They are not leaking all of your data, like Opera and Chrome do, but such behaviour is very concerning. Why do they need to know how many times i have opened my bookmarks, or when i cleaned my browser history? Extremely suspicious, and on top of that it makes the browser a bit slower.
I believe that what happens on your PC, should stay on your PC, the pages you open in your browser, stay in the browser.
The article you sent me is totally absurd and shows a complete lack of understanding or will to understand.
Librewolf and Arkenfox exist for the exact same reason this article exists: unbridled paranoia. They are actually by fat less secure than Firefox because of the risk of a compromised build chain which is lesser for an established browser.
The first example of "phoning home" your article gives is merely the get request Firefox uses to check if you are online and redirect you to a login portal if you are on shared WiFi.
The article also then makes a complaint about Firefox making requests to the sites you visit most frequently, which maked absolutely no sense, because if you visit them so frequently that then end up in your new page, then what is the problem with Firefox preloading the content?
On Google analytics, it is not part of the browser, but just used on Mozilla's website with an explicit exemption from Google not to use that data.
The "safebrowsing" requests are to download the list of known malware sites in order to keep you safe. They are not used for tracking.
The health report telemetry is the only thing that could be vaguely construed as actually being problematic, but it literally collects no personal data and is used to improve the browser.
Finally, the entire paragraph about pocket is bullshit: or course, if you create an account and start saving web pages to pocket then it is going to be stored on pocket's servers... What would you expect? The solution is simple: Just don't use pocket, nobody is forcing you to.
It is infuriating to see these lies repeatedly perpetuated online by people who have no understanding of what they are criticizing
None of the points mentioned even vaguely constitute a threat to user privacy.
To make matters worse they actually weaken users security by driving them to forks that risk them not recieving timely security updates.
Saving this one, thanks ๐
Ublock Origin & Sponsorblock - for blocking ads
DarkReader - for making all websites "dark mode"
uBlock Origin/Dark Reader/Sponsorblock/KeepassXC
Ublock Origin
Enhanced Steam
TWP - Translate Wep Pages (works better than the native chrome version)
ytc filter (Youtube live chat filter. When general chat becomes spammy)
Tabliss (Better version of the chrome start page)
Camelizer (Amazon price history)
Return YT Dislike
Dark Reader (How could I forget that...)
Bitwarden (or password manager of your choice)
Firefox now has it's own inbuilt local translator. None of your information is sent collected and translation is very good.
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/4572331
I even feel like TWP works better then the now native Firefox translation feature solely due to it allowing to translate any page by either selecting text and right clicking or by clicking on the icon in the adress bar. Firefox has the button as well but TWP letโs you choose the translation service (I believe itโs google, deepl and 1 or 2 other services)
Enhanced Steam
thanks! twp looks interesting!
My pleasure.
I even feel like TWP works better then the now native Firefox translation feature solely due to it allowing to translate any page by either selecting text and right clicking or by clicking on the icon in the adress bar.
Firefox has the button as well but TWP let's you choose the translation service (I believe it's google, deepl and 1 or 2 other services)
Seconding Tabliss. It's gorgeous and totally customizable
Ublock origin, bitwarden, dark background and light text, tridactyl
Good list. Ublock Origin and Sponsorblock are basically essential for YouTube these days. DeArrow helps to.
Honestly the less you can live with the better. For me essentials are always ublock for ads, imagus for better image viewing while browsing and simple translate because I deal with a lot of languages. Also containers is useful for work.
As well as those others have already mentioned, I use:
Linguist is a translation extension that respects your privacy. If you switch to the Bergamot translator it acts in offline mode.
Redirector which allows you to set custom rules so you can redirect (for example) Twitter to Nitter, Instagram to PikUki and also rules to redirect pages that are behind paywalls via 12ft.io (or 1ft.io as 12ft is currently down) .
TamperMonkey a userscript manager. I don't have loads of userscripts but I do have things like SocialFixer for making FB a bit better, Absolute Enable Right Click and Bandcamp Volume Bar.
ViolentMonkey as an open-source alternative for TamperMonkey.
Firefox now comes with an offline translator for major languages across all platform.
Linguist looks useful, added it - thanks!!
Containers. Makes it very easy to manage multiple accounts for the same sites, like YT, email...
Came here to say this! Containers is awesome, and you can muffin to the same service with different accounts in the same window!
My list:
And now I have a special profile just for Youtube so I can run uBlock Origin to shut Google up about my adblocker.
Edit: Also, if you like dark themes, check out Dracula.
It โclicksโ on all ads while still blocking them from my view.
Itโs not enough IMO to just block. I also want to poison their data about me by clicking on everything they attempt to show me.
love the dracula theme, thanks for the recommendation!!
What greasemonkey scripts do you use?
Skips things like adfly and other middle man scam sites https://fastforward.team/instructions
Lemmy Instance Assistant It does things like if someone links a post and the link takes you to the post on another instance, it adds a button to show the post on your home instance. You can also right click on a page (say, an article on a news site) or image and choose the option to share it on lemmy, which creates a new post. It also has stuff to help you when you click a link to a community but the community is not federated to your server, or you can go to the list of communities on another instance and it will have links to take you to that community on your home instance. That sort of thing. Basically the beginnings of a RES for lemmy.
I also like Dictionary Anywhere, which lets you double click on a word to get a definition, a bit like the one Google one for Chrome.
There are also various container extensions such as a Facebook or Google one, that isolates those sites to attempt to prevent that activity being associated with your activity on other sites. It can be a little annoying to get used to but I use them. The annoying thing is that when you click say a google site from a search result on duckduckgo, it closes the duckduckgo tab and opens the site in a google container, but then you can't click back to go back to the search results.
The general container tabs extension is good too. It keeps separate cookies per container. So say if you have 3 different microsoft accounts, you can create different containers. Then you can open a new tab in a specific container and it will remember the account you logged into last time in that specific container, but doesn't affect other containers or tabs not in a container.
It's only beginning, it has nowhere near the features of RES, and mainly it helps with issues related to lemmy federation. But if there's something you want, the dev is pretty open to new feature suggestions.
RES shouldn't really be needed for Lemmy - it's better to just directly upstream the changes, since it's open source.
thanks!!
People have already mentioned the more popular ones
Apart from those, Id recommend Behind the Overlay- it's an extension that removes a lot of unclosable popups on pages in a single click. Things like "disable your adblock" messages or websites that poorly gatekeep content behind a subscription.
ublock origin, noscript
i tried noscript and I didnt like having to manually authorize each site. it looks like it'd be useful in some situations
NoScript and umatrix are a pain when starting out. But once they are working can change your whole view of the web. Umatrix even has setting cloud saves so if you move PCs or reset in some way you don't lose an that work.
I never cared for it. Broke a lot of sites and I never found it helpful.
I think the arkenfox project website has some good info on this. For a good privacy baseline, you basically only need to enable strict mode and download the ublock origin extension, then change some settings for the extension (e.g. add filter lists).
A bit offtopic here, but how can I auto hide cookie prompts in uBlock? What I do is that I manually hide them with cosmetic filter, then I never have to worry about accepting them or not (kinda like I still don't care about cookies extension)
SimpleTabGroups - organize your tabs
uBlock Origin - adblocker
Prvacy Badger - block trackers
I still don't care about cookies - remove cookie prompts
Stylus - lets you create your own css based on url
Canvss Blocker - prevents finger printing but can break websites.
I still don't care about cookies is a must have, it is so nice to never have to click those prompts again.
A password manager is also nice. I recommend keepassxc and it's addon
Default action is to refuse all. You can whitelist sites/pages you want to keep.
Privacy Badger is kinda useless since ublock origin already blocks trackers. Same with canvas blocker if privacy.resistFingerprinting is enabled in about:config
If, like me, you do a lot of Chromecasting from your browser, you'll want to install fx_cast. You need to do a bit of manual installation to get it running, but it works great when you do.
I still don't care about cookies
Ublock
Imagus mod
Return Youtube Dislike
SponsorBlock for Youtube
Video Download Helper
Zoom Page WE
added them all, thanks!!
ublock was already mentioned couple of times. Additionally this one: https://addons.mozilla.org/...
Oh right, there is this one is also currently installed, but hidden and never interacted with.
https://addons.mozilla.org/...
Same functionality.
In most cases, the add-on just blocks or hides cookie related pop-ups. When it's needed for the website to work properly, it will automatically accept the cookie policy for you (sometimes it will accept all and sometimes only necessary cookie categories, depending on what's easier to do). It doesn't delete cookies.
Not to keen on it accepting the cookies on my behalf, the point is to not accept the cookie. Consent-o-matic will actively deny the requests.
Are there any tab group extensions that do it similarly to chrome, with collapsible groups in the tab bar?
I don't know how Chrome does it but there is Tree Style Tab that let's you group tabs and collapse them.
Chrome does it like this:

It lets you join tabs into a group, where you can add tabs to the group, remove tabs, and expand and collapse groups all in the regular tab bar without any other menus.
I use the following addons:
thanks!!
Consent-o-matic
Ublock origin (activate cloud storage and sync rules between devices!)
Bitwarden
Onetab
Firefox translations
Dark reader
Privacy redirect
thanks!!
Bewarned that the mobile Firefox app is really not great.
The browser is fine overall, don't get me wrong, there's just some inconveniences that aren't getting fixed.
The redirect thing is definitely just Firefox being weird. It's generally a basic redirect that triggers a return-to-app, and Firefox isn't following the redirect properly
This is a switch I made yesterday, but instead of Chrome to Firefox, I switched from Vivaldi (Chrome, but kinda like old Opera) to Floorp (japanese fork of Firefox with focus on privacy and sane defaults).
I got Sponsorblock for YouTube, uBlock Origin for ads and Gesturify for those awesome mouse gestures (my main reason for using an Opera-like).
Sometimes, I use Tampermonkey for misc Scripts on different Pages, so I installed that aswell. But for now, no scripts for Tampermonkey, as I primarily focus on setting it up to be more like Vivaldi.
Other addons are Ghostery for more privacy and Session Buddy to prevent oopsies when playing around with Tabs and windows.
Floorp even has dark mode for bright pages already included in the box.
Based on what I've read here on Lemmy, people generally tend to recommend agaรฅinst Ghostery, check this for one example : https://lemm.ee/comment/4348493
I run this. Can attest to its brilliance. Just want to point out though that its 2FA codes built in is inherently insecure. 2FA is meant as having multiple points of verification for enhanced security. By adding them all to Bitwarden you are again putting them all into a single point of verification / all eggs in 1 basket.
LibreWolf is Firefox without Mozilla telemetry, and with privacy settings on by default. Consider switching.
Be aware that the more extensions you add, the easier it is for websites to fingerprint (identify) you.
Used it for a while, but it seems to have issues when using the Dark Reader extension and I cannot handle staring at white pages at night
Surprised noone mentioned NoScript yet. It requires a bit more user interaction. But if you are worried about privacy and maybe security, it is important to know who is running scripts on your machine.
When I looked into it, it appeared uBlock origin already does what no script does when you turn on advanced mode and block 3rd party urls. (medium mode) Probably need to block first party to get quite there but that's usually overkill.
Now sticking with medium mode, most sites need a bit of fixing like no script did, but it's all done in uBlock.
Cookies: Cookie autodelete or Forget me not
Block site (so you're not sent where you don't want to go)
Wayback Machine (if you use it much)
Audio equalizer (to better understand mumbly / old Youtube audio)
Dark background and light text (so you don't go blind)
It's the an extension for Google Passwords? It's my password manager for all my devices.
I would love to switch to Firefox, but I don't want to open chrome every time I need a to retrieve/save a password.
Switch to BitWarden, then use this tutorial to get your passwords from Chrome into BitWarden.
It has a web, desktop and mobile app and also a Firefox extension, which are all here.
Firefox can save passwords without an extension although there is a password manager you can add. Sign into something on Firefox and it will ask you to if you want to save your login. I've haven't needed google for any reason after switching.
This thread is full of good suggestions so here are a few that might not have been mentioned:
To get some of the missing features back:
Does having a lot of extensions running slow performance?
Thought it might. Have horrible images of internet explorer with a million buttons and fields crammed in everywhere.
Fox11 user CSS:
Ghostery hasn't been mentioned - it has a feature to auto-decline cookies. The popup shows up, but you just wait half a sec and everything has been auto declined.
More than I know I got it just for denying those popups. I guess I'll look into the other one because it has been a game changer.
I wouldn't recommend an extension which has a shady history.
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@lemmy.world
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !uspolitics@lemmy.world
Please don't delete your post for no apparent reason. If you plan on deleting a question later, say so in the post, or if you feel that you have a good reason to remove it, message a mod beforehand. It's not fair to the ones who took their time to answer, and it's not in the spirit of the community.
Posts or comments from bots, LLM's, AIs, Neural Networks, Transformers, or Marvin the Paranoid Android are not welcome in AskLemmy. Real humans only please.
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ublock origin with the annoyance list activated.
dark reader. Itโs not perfect but I get most sites in a usable dark mode.
Thatโs mostly it.
save