What privacy extensions is everyone running these days?

[Red Squirrel]

Currently I have ublock and privacy badger but I have a weird issue on Firefox on this particular machine where it constantly logs me out of sites - sometimes in the middle of a transaction. It's super annoying and has caused a lot of headaches on some badly designed sites where credit card transactions don't go through. I don't really know if it's the extensions doing this or what. I don't have this problem on other computers. Only on my main one.

I am planing on reloading my whole OS in hopes I can make this issue go away as I feel a simple reinstall of Firefox probably won't be enough due to all the junk that tends to be left behind when uninstalling stuff. Curious what extensions I should look at installing at this point? I don't really want to go without, because most sites are riddled with trackers now days so I want a way to block that stuff.

 

[balloonshark]

I'm using Noscript, Ublock Origin, Firefox multi-account containers and Flagfox. I also have a couple of VPN add-ons but I keep them disabled until needed.

FWIW Privacy Badger can mess with some cookies. Search the page for the word cookie. https://privacybadger.org/#faq

 

[Red Squirrel]

I found noscript annoying since most sites now days won't even load before you figure out which of 200 domains you need to allow. Makes doing any kind of internet research really annoying as that involves landing on many random sites and each one having to deal with that. Has it gotten better for that, ex: smarter and only block bad scripts?

Really what I'd like is a way to just block sites from seeing what other sites I've visited or what I did on them. Is there an extension for that? For example if I buy something on Amazon I don't want Facebook or Google to know.

 

[balloonshark]

I found noscript annoying since most sites now days won't even load before you figure out which of 200 domains you need to allow. Makes doing any kind of internet research really annoying as that involves landing on many random sites and each one having to deal with that. Has it gotten better for that, ex: smarter and only block bad scripts?

Really what I'd like is a way to just block sites from seeing what other sites I've visited or what I did on them. Is there an extension for that? For example if I buy something on Amazon I don't want Facebook or Google to know.

Noscript is pretty much the same. If I had a nickel for every mouse-click using noscript I would be rich lol.

Check out multi-account containers add-on by Mozilla for tab isolation. Not sure how many containers you can make though. It's one of my favorite add-ons for a reason. I can use it to log into one or more of my yahoo accounts at the same time. If I'm banking or logging into my health site I can isolate those tabs. If I have to log-in to a social network I isolate that tab, etc.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/

They also make facebork container. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/facebook-container/

 

[mxnerd]

I use Ghostery. I'm not privacy paranoid though. I don't know if it really works for every website.

Some recommended secure browsers

12 Secure Browsers That Protect Your Privacy in 2024

A secure browser that protects your privacy is essential for staying safe online and keeping your data secure from third parties.

restoreprivacy.com

 

[Red Squirrel]

I recently discovered the container tab feature I use it for development so I can login to same site as multiple users for testing stuff. May look at using it for social media too. Split that from everything else. I suppose isolating stuff would help. Ex: if I shop on a different container than social media at least they can't see what I buy and so on.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Just been rocking pi hole to filter for now. Was using no script for many years, but trying to get websites to work by digging thru lists of redirects was getting tedious

 

[Red Squirrel]

Might try out Ghostery and dump privacy badger, see if it fixes the issue. Though it's odd since I have privacy badger on other browsers and it's fine, it's only on this one machine that I have lot of glitchiness so either way I need to completely reinstall.

 

[lxskllr]

You could try cookieautodelete. It deletes cookies automatically per your specification, and you can whitelist cookies. It's stuff that can be done using builtin tools, but it makes it easier having an icon to click to manage it. And block 3rd party cookies of course.

edit:
I would also consider using noscript in permissive mode. Allow all scripts by default, then block scripts as time/motivation allows. Very imperfect, but it beats a blank, and can get you around web annoyances on a case by case basis. I block all scripts by default on my home machine, and it's gotten tedious over the years. Dunno what to do about it, but I'm tired of operating noscript.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Will check that one out. What I would like is a way to allow all cookies including 3rd party, BUT the 3rd party ones would delete on a timer, like say, 1 hour. I think what keeps breaking certain sites is they call scripts that call other scripts etc and they rely on a 3rd party cookie to pass info to a 3rd party site such as a transaction site for credit card stuff. So by allowing 3rd party cookies for at least a short while it would ensure these don't fail.

As for constantly being logged out of random sites I think that is a glitch on this specific PC because it's not doing it on others so hopefully a full reinstall is going to help. Will try browser only and failing that, the whole OS.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

I had tried ghostery before but it seemed to slow my system down so I eventually started to use Privacy Badger which I am happy with.

Also, been using Cookie Autodelete for quite a while now so I think that one is pretty good too. Worth trying out, to see if it works for you, for sure.

 

[mindless1]

Currently I have ublock and privacy badger but I have a weird issue on Firefox on this particular machine where it ... I don't have this problem on other computers. Only on my main one.

I am planing on reloading my whole OS in hopes I can make this issue go away as I feel a simple reinstall of Firefox probably won't be enough due to all the junk that tends to be left behind when uninstalling stuff.

First thing I'd try is closing FF then renaming the FF profile folder on that machine to hide it (during this temporary test), then copy over the FF profile folder from another machine where it works properly. It's probably in C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles, *something*.default named folder. Rename the folder you copied over, to match the prior name of the folder you renamed to hide, before launching firefox again.

Once you get it working right, it's also a good idea to make a backup of that folder, or else pull it out of a larger backup set if/when the need arises.