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).
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.