Firefox addons that I use

Here I present a list of Firefox addons that I use and why I can't browse the web in a healthy way without them. And as a bonus, there is a little rant in the end of the article.

Wait, you use Firefox?!

Technically yeah. I use GNU Icecat which is basically a fork of Firefox without the spyware features. I wish I can go instead with something like Dillo, elinks or even curl https://www.example.com/ | html2ascii | less, but let's be real here, the web (sadly) became a software platform, and (more sadly) we cannot resist that by crippling ourselves with ancient browsers. I know, the blame is on the whole web technology that degenerated into privacy-nulled cyberspace. But let's take the responsibility to fix that (more on this in the end of the article).

Note: Fortunately, if you want to use vanilla Firefox for some reason, you can still disable the antifeatures with so-called "strict" privacy-friendly configuration; which involves changing some preferences and fiddling in about:config and stuff like that. You can start from here and here.

Privacy-related addons

Containerise (source)

This addon opens a new page in a specific container if its URL (or domain name) matches one of that container's rules. This way I can enforce that specific websites will always open in their respective containers (instead of manually doing that).

Decentraleyes (source)

This addon redirects CDN-related files like common Javascript libraries into locally stored bundles instead of connecting to CDNs, so that these CDNs cannot track you.

Forget Me Not (source)

Cookies are the most evident way through which trackers do track, and basically what this addon do is automatically cleaning cookies, local storage and other trackable stuff on a regular basis, and according to a global, per-domain and per-cookie ruleset.

History Cleaner (source)

This addon simply cleans browsing history that is older than a specified period.

HTTPS Everywhere (source)

You most likely know this addon already. It blocks plain HTTP connections by default.

Lightweight Container Proxy (source)

This is a very badly written addon that enables a per-container proxy configuration. The addon's author has abandoned it merely because another bloated spyware-ridden addon provides the same functionality. Its usage is barely documented and I had to read its source code to actually be able to use it. The addon's interface does not even able you to use a custom port number for the SOCKS5 proxy other than the conventional 1080 port. Nevertheless, I still prefer to use it instead of that bloated addon.

Privacy Redirect (source)

Redirects Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Google Maps, Reddit, search engine queries, Google Translate and Wikipedia requests to privacy-friendly alternatives (frontends). You can specify which instances to use for those alternatives, or let it randomly choose ones from its bundled-in list of common instances.

Redirector (source)

This addon provides the same functionality as the previous one, except that you can specify the redirect rule yourself (e.g. by providing a regular expression). I use it to redirect common websites to their onion counterparts, and to add "?share=1" to Quora URLs so I don't have to sign-up there (LOL).

uMatrix (source)

I think it's a bit hard for me to explain how this addon works, but I can say it's something of a very configurable ad-blocker. It allows/blocks specific request categories (CSS, Images, JS, etc) from specific domains and sub-domains, rule-by-rule. It may look complicated at first usage but trust me this addon is very essential and powerful that once you get used to it, you cannot go without it.

User-Agent Switcher (source)

This addon gives you control over the user-agent string that is sent to the websites you visit. You can let it periodically change your user-agent to random one, and set permanent user-agents for specific domains (or sub-domains). You can specify your own list of user-agents, or use bundled-in ones.

Miscellaneous addons

Mastodon – Simplified Federation! (source)

This addon slightly facilitate the cumbersome process of following Mastodon accounts that are not in the same server that I use.

Rant: All current web browsers suck

The only web browsers that really support the modern web are ones developed by mega-corporations, plagued with spyware and antifeatures, and are really insecure; mainly due to bad engineering and the fact that they're written in memory-unsafe languages (C++). To get rid of the antifeatures, you have to maintain a fork (of course, the browser need be "open-source") and dive into a huge codebase just to get rid of bullshit. And even with that, the browsers still suck-by-design. They fuck up your computing resources with memory leaks. They are barely usable without installing a bunch of addons that are written in Javascript and restricted by a very limited API (which keeps forcing you to reload pages each time you apply a new configuration). Accessibility is at its worst: no keyboard-centric UI, no CLI/TUIs, no audio interfaces. I know, there are a lot of user-centric browsers (like Luakit, Qutebrowser, NetSurf etc), but all of them are either ① using a bloated web engine that still suffers from the same security issues as mainstream web browsers do, or ② are using archaic HTML/CSS interpreters with no support to modern standands or even Javascript. Don't get me wrong: I fucking hate the web! But I still need to use it (sadly through a modern web browser that enthusiastically suck), so fuck it.