Add-ons Review

VPN Forum
1

Hey guys,

I had enabled a few add-ons listed below and recently came to know that the more add-ons you have, the easier it becomes for a website to fingerprint you. Thereby, please could you advise which of these are necessary or good to have for firefox desktop. Suggestions for other add-ons are also welcome. Thank you for your time!

Bitwarden (will be keeping it)
ClearURLs
Decentraleyes
Disable WebRTC (heard it's a must have)
Easy Screenshot
Emisoft Browser Security
Facebook Container
ffCK Overlays
Grammarly (will be keeping it)
Hoxx VPN Proxy
HTTPS Everywhere
I still don't care about cookies
IDM Integration Module (will be keeping it)
Magic Actions for Youtube
Momentum (will be keeping it)
Privacy Badger
TrafficLight by Bitdefender
TunnelBear VPN
Translate Web Pages
uBlock Origin (will be keeping it)
uMatrix (disabled at the moment)
WOT Website Security & Browsing Protection
2

ClearURLs: Can be replaced by uBlock Origin’s “Adguard URL Tracking Protection” list, and I recommend adding this one too.

Decentraleyes is outdated, use LocalCDN.

Emisoft Browser security: Never heard of it, looks shady to me, harden firefox and use uBo instead of this.

Facebook Container: Useless, as Firefox separates websites and cookies by default.

F Overlays: Use uBO’s element picker tool if you find overlays.

Hoxx VPN proxy: Free VPN extensions are likely a scam, remove it. By the way, do you really nee a VPN?

HTTPS Everywhere: Useless, Firefox has a HTTPS-only mode, also, this extension is scheduled for deprecation.

I Still Don’t Care About Cookies: Can be replaced by uBO’s “Adguard Annoyance” and “Fanboy’s Annoyance” lists, altough uBO only hides the cookie banners, not declines the cookies for you, and this might break some sites.

Privacy Badger: Outdated and useless with uBO.

Trafficlight by Bitdefender: I wouldn’t use it, as I’ve said, harden Firefox and use uBO and you’ll be fine.

Tunnelbear VPN: Again, free VPNs are shady.

uMatrix: I recommend learning to use uBO better instead of using uMatrix, you probably already know it is outdated and all that.

WOT Website Security and Browser Protection: No need when you can use uBO to block malicious websites outright.

3

I had enabled a few add-ons listed below and recently came to know that the more add-ons you have, the easier it becomes for a website to fingerprint you.

How? If you are using a fingerprinting test site, which ones do they detect?

Disable WebRTC

Unless you are using its button to turn WebRTC on and off as needed, you can disable WebRTC in the settings. Either way, disabling WebRTC may be detectable because most people do not disable it.

4

Decentraleyes - use LocalCDN instead

Disable WebRTC - instead, set media.peerconnection.enabled to false

Facebook Container - not necessary unless logging in with more than one account or using FB for SSO

Hoxx VPN Proxy - not needed w/TunnelBear

HTTPS Everywhere - it’s built into FF (Privacy & Security setting)

Privacy Badger - remove; not needed w/UBO

5

Wowza! That’s a lot of extensions friend! :joy:

Alright let’s break it down.

Out of this list, here are the ones you should keep:

  • Bitwarden
  • Facebook Container if you want it
  • Replace Grammarly with LanguageTool (an open source alternative to Grammarly)
  • Replace TunnelBear with ProtonVPN, IVPN, or Mullvad, and don’t use an extension for them unless you for some reason have to
  • Replace Translate Web Pages with Firefox Translations
  • Replace Emisoft with NextDNS (not a browser addon)
  • Replace ClearURLs with Totally Legitimate URL Shortener Tool

Things to add:

  • CanvasBlocker
  • Multi-Account Containers

Advanced: Arkenfox user.js

This is a project focused on making Firefox as secure as possible. This requires some customization for normal use, and I could help you with that if you’d like, but as of today this is the best way to make Firefox as secure as it can be.

If you’d like explanations for some of the add-ons you have listed, and why they are not required, Arkenfox actually has a section in their wiki about it: 4.1 Extensions · arkenfox/user.js Wiki · GitHub

6

Thank you for your review. I made the changes accordingly. I primarly use VPN to access certain websites that are not available in my country. Is there any alternative or a workaround on this?

7

Sites can’t ask the browser for a list of the addons you’re using, so they must rely on monitoring changes made to the website that an addon might do, like sites that detect you have an adblocker based on the fact that ads haven’t gotten thru and show a “disable adblocker” banner.

If a site really wants to, it can even detect which adblocker you’re using.

8

Thank you for your suggestions! I have changed wherever necessary.

9

/u/candroid_man, we recommend not using arkenfox user.js, as it can cause difficult to diagnose issues in Firefox. If you use arkenfox user.js, make sure to read the wiki. If you encounter issues with arkenfox, ask questions on their issues page. They can help you better than most members of r/firefox, as they are the people developing the repository. Good luck!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

10

Thank you!! I have made the changes accordingly and followed the extensions wiki from Arkenfox as well. I will dig in deep to understand its configuration file and certain extensions mentioned there.

11

I agree with everything he said. Also use a more privacy respecting VPN such as ProtonVPN, IVPN, or Mullvad

12

The other reply to your comment has some good VPN suggestions, another alternative would be using the TOR Browser.

13

/u/Super_Zucchini4371, we recommend not using arkenfox user.js, as it can cause difficult to diagnose issues in Firefox. If you use arkenfox user.js, make sure to read the wiki. If you encounter issues with arkenfox, ask questions on their issues page. They can help you better than most members of r/firefox, as they are the people developing the repository. Good luck!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.