Sponsorblock for YouTube. It automatically skips over parts of videos where they try to get you to play Raid Shadow Legends.
This + DeArrow. DeArrow replaces clickbaity titles and thumbnails with better titles submitted by the community. I wouldn't ever use youtube without it again. With this setup I don't even want to watch most videos anymore, which is a good thing, because let's be real, youtube is a big waste of time.
let’s be real, youtube is a big waste of time
I see people say this a lot, especially on the fediverse, and it makes me wonder why people think youtube is a "waste of time" when youtube's uses are what the user makes of it.
I primarily use youtube for learning things. There are so many thousands of hours of useful, educational content on youtube that I find the suggestion that the entire platform is useless clickbait to be reductive and disingenuous.
Sure, there are channels I watch for typical mind-numbing content like Let's Plays and such, but I wouldn't suggest that youtube is wholly a waste of time just because there's plenty of mindless content on it.
Just like Reddit or Lemmy, I can create an account and subscribe to a bunch of dumb shitposting communities, but I can also subscribe to a bunch of interesting hobbyist/intrigue communities.
How to reduce time on Youtube or make it more enjoyable
avoid shorts completely (revanced)
avoid reaction videos
avoid any video which has someone with a mouth open or just making a ridiculous face
avoid videos with clickbaity thumbnails/titles (duh) no matter how much you like the creator
avoid videos which have "watch till the end" in the title
[Important] watch channels with moderate number of subs and views
If you are being intentional about its use, then you can get a lot out of it. But for some, maybe even most, YouTube is a distraction.
Well, of course you are right. The problem is that for many people (including me)
it is hard to use it in a way that actually brings value, because
it is just too easy to spend hours on there without getting anything in return.
I also think that it is highly subjective what can be considered "good" or "bad"
content. When it comes to educational content, I also would consider it
a waste of time. Sure, if I have a real life problem and the solution
happens to be described in a youtube video, there is nothing wrong with watching it. But often times I was just like "Oh, this could be useful at some
point in the future" and at the end of the video I could hardly remember
what it was about.
I also don't think that "mindless" content is inherently bad. If it helps someone
to relax, go for it. I always felt worse afterwards.
Saying youtube would be a big waste of time in general is indeed reductive, but I think
for many people it actually is, because it is just not designed to be
used to bring you value. The only objective is that you spend as many hours
on their platform as possible.
I'm still of the mind that I can just fast forward through those sections. It's not particularly egregious or annoying imo. Just hit that right arrow a few times and boom.
Reminder to support creators in other ways if you're going to use this.
Edit: similarly, if you can afford it kick a few bucks to your Lemmy instance. We're about freedom as in speech, not as in freeloading, people. The whole reason the internet shifted to being ad and data collection based after the dotcom bubble is because no one wants to pay for anything.
You know creators get paid for the sponsor right? Not for if people watch that part or not.
A main reason youtube is so successful as an advertising product is their detailed metrics. Virtually every sponsor will want to see each video's metrics which show retention during different parts of the video. It would be the same as putting the ad at the end of an hour long video; if they see a huge drop off where almost no one sees the ad, they may decide the creator didn't fulfill their end of the contract, or pay them proportionally to the retention during the ad.
Thing is, the way a company determines if a sponsorship is working is by using offer codes. If no one is using an offer code, the company is going to assume that that sponsorship isn't working out and might terminate the deal.
Not my problem,I'm never sitting through ads/shilling ever again
Why would a sponsor pay for an ad if they know nobody will watch? Its not magic money out of nowhere; the sponsor has to come out net positive or else they stop sponsoring.
I use ublock origin, sponsorblock, dearrow and I'm never turning them off
I have premium so they're already getting my money.
Yeah, that's fair.
UBlock Origin
NoScript
HTTPSEverywhere
edit: "isn't this implemented in-browser?" comments: maybe, but it's to the browser's implementation. These plugins are reviewable separate from their analogous browser implementation.
Belt & suspenders approach. Camp on it.
“Sponsor Block” is a game changer as well
I thought HTTPS everywhere was baked into browsers now and didn't need to be installed anymore? Is that not correct?
Yes i think firefox will do it if configured correctly
Yeah HTTPS-everwhere was important 10+ years ago, but now the main browsers all do this by default.
Isn’t NoScript redundant if you run UBO in medium mode?
Roughly similar to using Adblock Plus with many filter lists + NoScript with 1st-party scripts/frames automatically trusted. Unlike NoScript however, you can easily point-and-click to block/allow scripts on a per-site basis.
If you go in ublock origin settings, scroll all the way down, you can toggle a setting that disables JS by default. On each site you can whitelist it by clicking ubo and enable JS.
I wasn't aware of this feature in UBO, but it doesn't seem to be quite the same. As best I can tell (with a quick test), UBO lets me turn all scripts on or off for a site. I don't see any sort of granular controls for selecting which domains to load scripts from (and I might just be missing it). For example, I may want to allow first party scripts to run on a site and maybe third party scripts from one or two domains. But, I don't want scripts from other third party domains to execute. It's very much a fine grained, least privileged style of script management. It's a lot more work, as you often have to spend a few minutes sussing out which domains need to be whitelisted to allow a site to reach minimum functionality; but, you are not often caught offguard by a site doing strange things on your system.
Ah ok. I might give that a whirl then.
If you check "I'm an advanced user" in the settings, then hit the "More" button in the dropdown a few times it'll show the more advanced interface that lets you choose which third party domains to allow. It doesn't work quite the same since it blocks both content and scripts per site, but I find it good enough for my usage.
edit: You can technically block just scripts per 3rd party site, but it involves manually editing the content type for your rules in the settings. It's not part of the main interface, so I never bother using it.
I don't understand your edit, how is more things doing the same thing better? It adds complexity, attack surface while taking resources.
Yeah, sorry... My head was in 1000 different places when I wrote that. Sloppy of me.
Overall I agree with the general statement that less code is better, except perhaps in this case it is not.
What I had been trying to say is in-browser privacy implementations are liable to be incomplete from the perspective of privacy minded users because the software publishers, say, Mozilla, are competing for market share of installed, default browsers. One way they maintain market share is by having the fastest and most accurate page renders for the widest base of use cases. To do this requires, in part, some cooperation from website developers whose vested interest in part is in driving ad serves.
Therefore, it's in the browser publishers' interest to implement enough privacy and blocking features to effectively stop malware and common nuisances, but not completely cripple ad blocking since ads are a key part of web site operators' revenue. They're trying not to alienate that part of the web economy such that their browser suddenly starts hitting those "please turn off you ad blocker or select another browser" paywalls.
Mozilla pretty much said this was the case a few years ago when they opted not to turn on the privacy features by default in new installs because the advertisers threatened to start hobbling websites for Mozilla browsers. I don't know that the situation has really changed much since then.
Anyway, my point was that the in-browser privacy features are a good start and should be enabled, but also that they amount to little more than a fig leaf over the question of effectively blocking ads. Loading the adblockjng extensions accomplishes a few things for the user. First, the extensions grant a more complete, uncompromised blocking experience for the user. Second, it grants the user finer-grained control over the whole web experience, letting the user decide what ads and cross-site data sharing occurs. Finally, the code is independent of the browser and so it doesn't alienate the site owners from the browser publisher.
For Mozilla, it shifts the responsibility of incomplete page loads and breakage onto the user, which in my opinion is where we want it.
That's why I'm advocating for doing both in this case: because the browser publishers have a vested interest to remain relevant in an economy that wants you to see the ads, and will do everything it can to make you click them. The best defense against for the user that is a multilayered approach.
Finally, I do want to acknowledge that I'm using the terms "privacy" and "ad blocking" too loosely here since they are separate, distinctly nuanced topics. The extensions help more in the ad blocking space than the privacy space, but in what I wrote I think its fair to say that overall the extensions do improve outcomes where the two spaces intersect.
Anyway, nice chat. Thanks for keeping me honest
Wow, you are really confused. The argument about the functionality being already implemented by Firefox was about https everywhere. This has nothing to do with adblocking and it does break some sites (the one still not using https) but you can still access them with a click.
Ah, that makes sense. Fair enough, I guess Incan disable that plugin now.
For Firefox:
uBlock origin (of course)
Privacy Badger - controls which sites are allowed to use cookies
Mind the time - tracks time spent on various Web sites
Video DownloadHelper - detects media and allows you to download and transcode it.
Bitwarden - password manager
ToS;DR (Terms of Service; Didn't Read). It gives pages a rating based on their terms of service. It also provides you with a plain-english breakdown of the terms of a site/service.
it's a pretty controversial opinion that's practically impossible to regulate but I think purposefully making TOS/Legal stuff harder to read solely to get away with stuff that the user would disagree with should be illegal
Imo, ToS;DR isn't, and shouldn't be, a replacement for a proper legal document. A proper legal document will contain all of the necessary definitions for clarity, and will word things accurately to cover all possible loopholes. ToS;DR simply provides a sort of point-form summary of the main rules and points that a person should be aware of in a very basic and quick-to-digest manner.
Adnausem. Built on top of unlock origin it will simulate clicks on ads it hides to mess up your advertising profile. Also has an ad vault so you can see the adverts it is hiding.
Consent-o-matic. Run by a Danish uni, it will auto deny all cookie popups by actually opting out of everything for you.
Pretty standard stuff here:
UBlock Origin
No Script - Yes, I run both UBO and NoScript, they have slightly different use cases
Dark Reader
FireFox Multi-Account Containers
Redirector - Great for automagically changing links
KeePassXC-Browser - For password manager integration
Rested - For monkeying with REST APIs
User-Agent Switcher and Manager - Why yes, I am the browser you are looking for
Video DownloadHelper - Because sometimes, you need stuff available offline
In terms of actually recommending extensions to others. I'd recommend most of the above, excepting NoScript. If you are using UBO, then the use case for NoScript is a very narrow one where you want selective whitelisting of javascript while visiting a site. UBO's blacklisting approach works for most cases and UBO's whitelisting feature is lacking the granularity of NoScript.
If you use any kind of ad blocker, switch to FireFox
Chrome is deliberately crippling ad block extensions via manifest v3
God, I love Dark Reader. I don't know why anyone makes bright white websites.
I use Dark Reader on my work laptop was well. We had a conference call with a vendor and I was sharing my screen while talking with their team about our usage of their product and one of them stopped me and asked about the UI looking strange. I said, "oh ya, I use Dark Reader because you don't have a native dark mode. You do lose points for that." They had a native dark mode a couple months later.
I've come to the conclusion that UI designers hate their customers' retinas.
Multi-account containers is one of my favorite things about Firefox. I use Temporary Containertabs too, so anything not in an explicit container is in a brand new one of its own.
SponsorBlock - Skips over the bits of a video where sponsors are advertised.
Im using Firefox/a fork of it - please note that many of the below mentioned extensions either only exist for Firefox or don't work well with Chromium browsers due to manifest V3.
UBlock Origin
I still don't care about cookies
CanvasBlocker
Multi account containers
Dark Reader
FlagFox
(Bitwarden)
Id replace „still dont care about cookies“ with consent-o-magic. It actually deselects tracking cookies instead of ignoring/acknowleding them
Thanks for the tip!
FlagFox
This one is really useful, thanks!
I usually don't get to post anything in these because everyone basically uses the same plugins to unfuck the internet
so heres a few that haven't been posted yet
Bye Rupert
Flag Fox
Return Youtube Dislike
The SingleFile extension. It saves the current webpage you're looking at, including all images as a single webpage that you can view offline.
Why would I need offline internet?
Because webpages with valuable information are becoming increasingly rare and nothing lasts forever on the Internet?
Yup! I usually just pdf it.
Fair enough, I'm just not in the business of archiving the internet on my computer.
You already do to some extent, your cache is likely over 2GB already
I don't know man. If I swim in the ocean, I get wet, but I still wouldn't say I'm taking any of the ocean with me as I come out of it.
By the same logic, I'd say I'm not "saving" anything although yes I do understand at all times I will have some gigs of "the internet" on my local machine.
Not quite sure that example tracks. I'd say it's more like you went food shopping yesterday and still have stuff leftover in the fridge today. Sure it might not be as fresh as when you got it from the store, but it's still completely edible.
I disagree with your assessment. To an average user, whatever winds up saved in their browser cache is there mostly unintentionally. Yes, it's saving info from sites they choose to visit, but after that initial choice, the user is out of the loop. The browser saves what it needs to without user notification or input. I might even wager that most users are unaware of their browser cache, or don't know what's in it or how to access it. Therefore, I believe your metaphor perhaps confers too active a decision-making process on something that most people are completely unconscious of.
To be clear, the strawman average user I'm using here is me. I know I have a browser cache, I know vaguely what is stored in it and why, and I know how to clear it if I'm having certain issues. That's about it. I sure as heck don't treat it as an archive.
LibRedirect - redirects common proprietary sites to a free and open source alternative
Tampermonkey - allows you to find and install custom open source scripts that add functionality to websites
Check out ViolentMonkey, it's an open source userscript manager
I think that's basically the same thing as Tampermonkey. There's also GreasyFork which hosts custom scripts.
Yeah, except you can check what it does, how it works, and make changes to it.
That's what he said "an open source" (alternative) . If it's basically the same, then violentmonkey is the way to go.
I was a mad Opera user about 25 years ago, it was the best browser by miles at the time. One feature it had was mouse gestures. Mouse gestures and uBlock origin are the only two extensions I can't love without, but these lists never mention them so I feel like the only one who uses them.
It's hard to explain how cool and quick it is to be able to control your browser with the mouse. Open/close tabs, navigate tabs, back/forward etc. It doesn't sound useful, I'm usually a mad keyboard shortcut fiend. But with web browsing in particular, your hand is already on the mouse, scrolling.
The specific extension I use is Gesturefy, I encourage people to install it and give mouse gestures a go.
Vivaldi (chromium) fully supports gestures and happens to have the best tab management on the market. Highly recommended.
Better Youtube Shorts (the shorts act more like normal videos, with rewind controls etc)
Decentraleyes (should help with website load speed by not fetching all the common CDN hosted stuff, as well as provide better privacy)
Song Identifier
Related to CDN stuff, there's LocalCDN, which I believe downloads the most commonly used scripts from various CDNs and hosts them locally, reducing the amount of tracking they can do as they aren't being pulled from the source each time.
That's what decentraleyes does as well
I remember people recommending decentraleyes for some time and then I remember there being an argument against it. I don’t remember what the problem was though.
I happened across a thread on Lemmy recently that discussed the usefulness of certain extensions, and this "Don't Bother" section of the Arkenfox wiki was linked:
A lot of conventionally useful extensions like Privacy Badger, HTTPS Everywhere, Decentraleyes/LocalCDN, etc are apparently not necessary (at least in Firefox) if you have certain browser preferences selected, like Strict Mode/Total Cookie Protection.
I felt outdated cause I still run Privacy Badger and Decentraleyes in my Firefox environments, but it was nice to see that a lot of these "extra" features that used to require extensions are now options built into the browser (or Firefox, at least).
I'm surprised I haven't seen any recommendations for "Indie Wiki Redirect" as Fandom (the wiki site, common for games) has started shoving ads down users throats, so wiki maintainers are moving to other sites like wiki.gg, but search engines still show Fandom as the first result.
Imagus - displays bigger image when hovered over (Imagus Mod recommended);
Sponsor Block - Skips promotions on YT videos;
TOS;DR - summarizes TOS and Privacy Policies;
Cookie Autodelete - erases cookies when you close a tab, can make you log out regularly if you don't put an website on a whitelist, though.
Dark Reader - changes the page CSS and creates a dark mode version of any page, while it isn't always 100% perfect, it has many useful configurations, like whitelisting websites OR words on them, changing to a light mode, but less bright version of it, setting up the time that it activates, and a few more.
Open tabs next to current/Always Right - What the names says, 2 different extensions, but on Chrome I prefer to combine them.
Wayback Machine - has an option to auto archive, can bring you to oldest or newest versions of websites and links.
Search Image - gives you 6 or so options to search for an image online, kind of combines with Imagus.
uBlock Origin - the best ad blocker so far, browsers with built in adblock use it.
Privacy Badger - blocks hidden trackers once it sees then on 3 different websites
WhatFont - displays the font name in a popup, this is more a personal thing, but I enjoy it.
Anti fingerprinting extensions can possibly help.
This is a long list, but these are one of the extensions that I have and I most value, there are some otherb too, but those are more aesthetic than anything.
:::
Despite uBlock, my first pick would be Tab Mix Plus. Firefox has yet to properly open up the API for tabs, so you still have to do some mucking around with internals, but TMP gives you multi-row tabs, specific tab-closing patterns, expanded right-click options, and a whole host of insanely useful tab features.
I have been using TMP almost since the beginning, a good 15+ years now, and consider it to be absolutely essential to a proper Firefox setup. I would be happy to punt my TMP config file to anyone interested.
Not a full list, but these are my day to day extensions that I use the most:
UBlock Origin - (obviously)
600% Sound Volume - managing volume for tabs
Dark Reader - Dark theme, that works well for *most *sites. Sometimes I need to manually disable it for certain sites that don't play well, but that's pretty rare
Fake Data - fill forms with random generated data - for every site i need to sign up for and don't want to use PII
addy.io - extension for add.io email forwarding service (subscription needed) generate random emails for every website i sign up for that direct to my main email. If I start getting spam, I know which alias it came from and which site I made it for
password manager extension of choice - I prefer Bitwarden, but I get a 1Password subscription free with work so that's what I use to share password records with family
firefox container manager - very handy for work tabs, logging in with family credentials, etc
Quick note, duckduckgo has a free alias email forwarding service and it integrates with bitwarden
Neat, I'll check it out
**I checked it out, and there's no reply functionality (which I use especially for support tickets), the email forwarding doesnt have a separate app, so it's a bit clunkier to organize each alias through the duckduckgo app/extension itself. I'll stick with addy.io for my use, but good to know they have that.
Tree style tabs
If only it was easier to remove the default tabs from firefox so you don't have duplicate tabs. I recently had problems getting the userCSS to do its thing, trying different directories. In the end the problem however was that I tried to link it with a symbolic link which for some reason doesn't work.
It's easy. I've had that removed in my config for over a decade
I got it work too but wouldn't call it easy. My process involves going to about:config to enable some variable that has a super long name. Then find out where the profiles are saved and remember not to use the "cached" directory version which I always end up on first. Then selecting one of the cryptic profile names and creating some specific directory structure and copying or linking (but no soft linking) my config there.
A simple checkbox in the settings would be nice, or another browser extension. Or is there an easier process?
FireMonkey/ViolentMonkey/Greasemonkey with the "YouTube Age Restriction Bypass" userscript
I never remember the user scripts, gotta check that
For Firefox:
UBlock Origin, of course.
And that extension that turns all Reddit pages into old Reddit pages. (I hate the redesign with a passion.)
I use Tampermonkey with a rule that turns all reddit links to old.reddit. ubo for disabling js on reddit
Just curious but how does disabling javascript on Reddit change the experience? Iir, diaabling it can break certain websites.
It won't allow reddit to have any tracking or analytics since no JS is able to run, it's practically a static html site. As for your experience, it works pretty much the same without JS
Am I mistaken, or would it make Reddit load slightly faster and use less resources? I might just give it a go.
Reddit Enhancement Suite I believe is the one you are referencing.
No, this one is on life support and it's the one which injects extra controls for image links, Twitter links and whatnot. The one you are thinking of is old Reddit redirect. And yeah, couldn't use Reddit without it
On Android I'm using Old Reddit Redirect. (I imagine just changing the URL is simpler, besides I'm not there enough to desire tons of features... I don't even have a Reddit acct. currently.)
On PC I just use old reddit boolmarks, and a bookmarklet that toggles to old Reddit :D
Vimium.
is there a way to disable the plugin stopping when you get to a Firefox page like settings? It's really annoying to be using hotkeys to scroll through tabs then just get stuck and have to use mouse
Test adding the preferences page to "excluded URLs" in the settings of vimium.
Besides what everyone else already said: Vimium-C. It lets you use Vim bindings in your browser. It's also extremely customizable and even works with my bizzare keyboard setup.
vim is a text editor program which is the centerpiece of a lot of people's workflow.
while vim itself alone is already impressively good, what makes it really stand out is the amount of Keybinds it has and how well you can use them.
hjkl for left up down right, for example. Sounds complicated, takes some getting used to, but after a while, it comes natural. hjkl in particular are great for navigation as that is where ur right hand is on the keyboard all the time, so no need to move it right hand to the arrow keys.
so a lot of other programs offer vim-like Keybinds to navigate or to do text stuff. This extension being one of them.
Linux command line text editor
Imagus feels like in an alternate universe it could be default browser behavior. When you hover over an image it will expand to full resolution and then you can press buttons to open in new tab, download, zoom in, etc.
Works on pretty much any website and is nice if the website has sized the images too small or if your eyesight is less than great.
this looks interesting, gonna give it a go
LibRedirect. Excellent one, that.
Sidebery on Firefox. Life changer for organising tabs.
What does it do?
It’s a tab organiser, like tree style tabs.
Has a bunch of organisation features and makes it easier to manage lots of tabs.
Ublock Origin
Privacy badger
Cookie AutoDelete
Privacy Badger is useless with uBlock Origin and cookie autodelete is useless with Firefox in strict mode.
As I've understood, privacy badger reliability on heuristic classification of trackers can help blocking the latest trackers that are still not present in ublock origin lists. And cookie autodelete allows me to choose which cookies I want to keep and delete the rest. And Strict mode only blocks cross-site cookies, I want them all deleted.
Cookie autodelete simply does not work with Firefox's Total Cookie Protection, which is enabled by default.
As of Firefox 86, strict mode is not supported at this time due to missing APIs to handle the Total Cookie Protection. Also as of Firefox 103, standard mode has also enabled Total Cookie Protection. Use 'strict' mode if using pre-86, use standard mode for versions 86-102, or from version 103+ use the custom configuration and set cookie to 'cross site tracking cookies' option (not the cross-site cookies).
You don't even need an extension to automatically delete cookies, just enable privacy.sanitize.sanitizeOnShutdown and privacy.clearOnShutdown_v2.cookiesAndStorage. To add an exception: Ctrl+I>Permissions>Cookies>Allow.
uBO, Facebook container, Bitwarden, Privacy Badger. People say uBO already covers Privacy Badger but I like keeping it there because of the replace widget feature.
I just enjoy usimg both
What's the replace widget feature?
Vimium C
Vimmium C denies the existence of Taiwan. Read the bottom of their github page.
Hmm interesting. Doesn’t have to be that one in particular there are many like it. I just like to have vim bindings for the web.
For sure. There is still the original vimmium and tridactyl.
Okay what does that have to do with the browser extension
Kill Sticky is a really good one, makes even the most bloated websites readable.
uBlock can do this as well, ticking the annoyances options
Not really, uBO blocks some known stuff like cookie notices while Kill Sticky removes every fixed element on a webpage. It's actually more similar to Reader View.
These are a bit unique from the lists everyone else has, I think:
Lemmy Keyboard Navigation (like the kbd shortcuts from RES)
Google Popup Blocker (stop the annoying log in with Google popups everywhere on the web)
OneTab (this one lets you collapse a whole window of tabs down into a list in the OneTab tab that you can later reexpand into a window again when you re-attack whatever subject all the tabs were about)
These are the more standard ones that everyone seems to run:
UBlock Origin
Reddit Enhancement Suite
2FAS Extension
BitWarden
I really only run 3 addons in Firefox currently. Chrome is the same but without UBlock.
UBlock Origin
BitWarden
Streetpass for Mastodon
Ublock Origin, dark reader, bitwarden and user agent switcher if websites are throwing a fit about firefox.
I try to use a minimum for performance reasons. My big three are uBlock Origin, Dark Reader and a password manager.
I haven't seen these mentioned but they are kinda niche though. I use them for work more than personal usecase but maybe someone else finds them useful.
Copy on select - highlighted text is automatically copied
Snap links - open multiple links or check several boxes using a click-drag interface
I want my RSS
surfingkeys - extension which add vim keybindings for control your browser without mouse
Detrumpify
Outside of what has already been mentioned, I still don't care about cookies and cookie autodelete in tandem. The first accepts cookies. The second deletes them when you are done.
Or use Consent-o-matic to not accept cookies
Cookie autodelete is useless if you use Firefox on strict mode.
Freetube Redirect
Imagus Mod: Enlarge and display images/videos from links with mouse-over. Reddit-hole.
Foxy Gestures. I love having mouse gestures for Close Tabs on Right, Back, and Close Tab, amongst other.
Zoom Page WE, automatically zoom to full width. Really useful for "convergence" pages, ie: lazy web developers that think every browser wants a 4 word wide column. You have to set "Automatically Zoom" in preferences, it doesn't work out of the box.
Wayback Machine and also archive.is's addons. I archive webpages frequently so they're super helpful. And if a webpage has been taken down you can easily go to an archived version with the Wayback addon.
Also, Vimium C. Not for everyone and definitely down to personal preference rather than "I recommend this to everyone", but I'd struggle to browse the web comfortably without it.
I use uBlock Origin, Malwarebytes, Privacy Badger, Bitdefender's Trafficlight and Simple Translate.
The last one is useful for translating selected text.
On my iPhone I have one called Save All Images. Basically you know how lots of sites especially any kind of social media where they want you there to see things… anyway they use a script or whatnot to prevent holding down on an image to get the save photo prompt. This is an extension that loads all images that are single level referenced and you can save any/all. I use it almost daily. Instagram, and the like, especially, they hate the notion of someone saving something.
In Firefox on my computer I have Element Blocker. Some websites just waste a lot of screen space so if you’re browsing a ton of content you’d like to get the most room, but some stuff takes up portions of the screen fixed and not movable. This extension lets you select an element and it makes it just disappear. It is absolutely essential.
Don't know if the other browsers have it, but I use Marker by robin-rpr on Firefox desktop. Simple Enough extension for being able to draw/annotate/highlight on browser screen. Was doing some college work in class and wanted to be able to quickly write out and convert binary. Helped so much to be able to do it in browser so I could easily see the numbers.
Though, it was last updated October 22, 2022, so keep that in mind if you're like me and don't always like using software that's more than a few years old (games not included). The alternative I saw (Web Marker by SFer) is under an "All Rights Reserved" license, but was updated last month (June 8th), so pick your poison.
if you're going for ultimate privacy... none, ironically.
I disagree on that one. Ad blocking and tracking blocking will be more private.
Ublock, decentralize, adblockplus, noscript, snowflake. (This is what I used on ff, but I use brave for a while now and its so much easier, brave + invidious)
Decentralise and adblockplus do nothing uBlock Origin doesn't already do. You can remove them. Also it's uBlock Origin, not just uBlock.
Sponsorblock for YouTube. It automatically skips over parts of videos where they try to get you to play Raid Shadow Legends.
This + DeArrow. DeArrow replaces clickbaity titles and thumbnails with better titles submitted by the community. I wouldn't ever use youtube without it again. With this setup I don't even want to watch most videos anymore, which is a good thing, because let's be real, youtube is a big waste of time.
I see people say this a lot, especially on the fediverse, and it makes me wonder why people think youtube is a "waste of time" when youtube's uses are what the user makes of it.
I primarily use youtube for learning things. There are so many thousands of hours of useful, educational content on youtube that I find the suggestion that the entire platform is useless clickbait to be reductive and disingenuous.
Sure, there are channels I watch for typical mind-numbing content like Let's Plays and such, but I wouldn't suggest that youtube is wholly a waste of time just because there's plenty of mindless content on it.
Just like Reddit or Lemmy, I can create an account and subscribe to a bunch of dumb shitposting communities, but I can also subscribe to a bunch of interesting hobbyist/intrigue communities.
How to reduce time on Youtube or make it more enjoyable
If you are being intentional about its use, then you can get a lot out of it. But for some, maybe even most, YouTube is a distraction.
Well, of course you are right. The problem is that for many people (including me) it is hard to use it in a way that actually brings value, because it is just too easy to spend hours on there without getting anything in return.
I also think that it is highly subjective what can be considered "good" or "bad" content. When it comes to educational content, I also would consider it a waste of time. Sure, if I have a real life problem and the solution happens to be described in a youtube video, there is nothing wrong with watching it. But often times I was just like "Oh, this could be useful at some point in the future" and at the end of the video I could hardly remember what it was about. I also don't think that "mindless" content is inherently bad. If it helps someone to relax, go for it. I always felt worse afterwards.
Saying youtube would be a big waste of time in general is indeed reductive, but I think for many people it actually is, because it is just not designed to be used to bring you value. The only objective is that you spend as many hours on their platform as possible.
I'm still of the mind that I can just fast forward through those sections. It's not particularly egregious or annoying imo. Just hit that right arrow a few times and boom.
Reminder to support creators in other ways if you're going to use this.
Edit: similarly, if you can afford it kick a few bucks to your Lemmy instance. We're about freedom as in speech, not as in freeloading, people. The whole reason the internet shifted to being ad and data collection based after the dotcom bubble is because no one wants to pay for anything.
You know creators get paid for the sponsor right? Not for if people watch that part or not.
A main reason youtube is so successful as an advertising product is their detailed metrics. Virtually every sponsor will want to see each video's metrics which show retention during different parts of the video. It would be the same as putting the ad at the end of an hour long video; if they see a huge drop off where almost no one sees the ad, they may decide the creator didn't fulfill their end of the contract, or pay them proportionally to the retention during the ad.
Thing is, the way a company determines if a sponsorship is working is by using offer codes. If no one is using an offer code, the company is going to assume that that sponsorship isn't working out and might terminate the deal.
Not my problem,I'm never sitting through ads/shilling ever again
Why would a sponsor pay for an ad if they know nobody will watch? Its not magic money out of nowhere; the sponsor has to come out net positive or else they stop sponsoring.
I use ublock origin, sponsorblock, dearrow and I'm never turning them off
I have premium so they're already getting my money.
Yeah, that's fair.
UBlock Origin
NoScript
HTTPSEverywhere
edit: "isn't this implemented in-browser?" comments: maybe, but it's to the browser's implementation. These plugins are reviewable separate from their analogous browser implementation.
Belt & suspenders approach. Camp on it.
“Sponsor Block” is a game changer as well
I thought HTTPS everywhere was baked into browsers now and didn't need to be installed anymore? Is that not correct?
Yes i think firefox will do it if configured correctly
Yeah HTTPS-everwhere was important 10+ years ago, but now the main browsers all do this by default.
Isn’t NoScript redundant if you run UBO in medium mode?
If you go in ublock origin settings, scroll all the way down, you can toggle a setting that disables JS by default. On each site you can whitelist it by clicking ubo and enable JS.
I wasn't aware of this feature in UBO, but it doesn't seem to be quite the same. As best I can tell (with a quick test), UBO lets me turn all scripts on or off for a site. I don't see any sort of granular controls for selecting which domains to load scripts from (and I might just be missing it). For example, I may want to allow first party scripts to run on a site and maybe third party scripts from one or two domains. But, I don't want scripts from other third party domains to execute. It's very much a fine grained, least privileged style of script management. It's a lot more work, as you often have to spend a few minutes sussing out which domains need to be whitelisted to allow a site to reach minimum functionality; but, you are not often caught offguard by a site doing strange things on your system.
Ah ok. I might give that a whirl then.
If you check "I'm an advanced user" in the settings, then hit the "More" button in the dropdown a few times it'll show the more advanced interface that lets you choose which third party domains to allow. It doesn't work quite the same since it blocks both content and scripts per site, but I find it good enough for my usage.
edit: You can technically block just scripts per 3rd party site, but it involves manually editing the content type for your rules in the settings. It's not part of the main interface, so I never bother using it.
I don't understand your edit, how is more things doing the same thing better? It adds complexity, attack surface while taking resources.
Yeah, sorry... My head was in 1000 different places when I wrote that. Sloppy of me.
Overall I agree with the general statement that less code is better, except perhaps in this case it is not.
What I had been trying to say is in-browser privacy implementations are liable to be incomplete from the perspective of privacy minded users because the software publishers, say, Mozilla, are competing for market share of installed, default browsers. One way they maintain market share is by having the fastest and most accurate page renders for the widest base of use cases. To do this requires, in part, some cooperation from website developers whose vested interest in part is in driving ad serves.
Therefore, it's in the browser publishers' interest to implement enough privacy and blocking features to effectively stop malware and common nuisances, but not completely cripple ad blocking since ads are a key part of web site operators' revenue. They're trying not to alienate that part of the web economy such that their browser suddenly starts hitting those "please turn off you ad blocker or select another browser" paywalls.
Mozilla pretty much said this was the case a few years ago when they opted not to turn on the privacy features by default in new installs because the advertisers threatened to start hobbling websites for Mozilla browsers. I don't know that the situation has really changed much since then.
Anyway, my point was that the in-browser privacy features are a good start and should be enabled, but also that they amount to little more than a fig leaf over the question of effectively blocking ads. Loading the adblockjng extensions accomplishes a few things for the user. First, the extensions grant a more complete, uncompromised blocking experience for the user. Second, it grants the user finer-grained control over the whole web experience, letting the user decide what ads and cross-site data sharing occurs. Finally, the code is independent of the browser and so it doesn't alienate the site owners from the browser publisher.
For Mozilla, it shifts the responsibility of incomplete page loads and breakage onto the user, which in my opinion is where we want it.
That's why I'm advocating for doing both in this case: because the browser publishers have a vested interest to remain relevant in an economy that wants you to see the ads, and will do everything it can to make you click them. The best defense against for the user that is a multilayered approach.
Finally, I do want to acknowledge that I'm using the terms "privacy" and "ad blocking" too loosely here since they are separate, distinctly nuanced topics. The extensions help more in the ad blocking space than the privacy space, but in what I wrote I think its fair to say that overall the extensions do improve outcomes where the two spaces intersect.
Anyway, nice chat. Thanks for keeping me honest
Wow, you are really confused. The argument about the functionality being already implemented by Firefox was about https everywhere. This has nothing to do with adblocking and it does break some sites (the one still not using https) but you can still access them with a click.
Ah, that makes sense. Fair enough, I guess Incan disable that plugin now.
For Firefox: uBlock origin (of course)
Privacy Badger - controls which sites are allowed to use cookies
Mind the time - tracks time spent on various Web sites
Video DownloadHelper - detects media and allows you to download and transcode it.
Bitwarden - password manager
ToS;DR (Terms of Service; Didn't Read). It gives pages a rating based on their terms of service. It also provides you with a plain-english breakdown of the terms of a site/service.
it's a pretty controversial opinion that's practically impossible to regulate but I think purposefully making TOS/Legal stuff harder to read solely to get away with stuff that the user would disagree with should be illegal
Imo, ToS;DR isn't, and shouldn't be, a replacement for a proper legal document. A proper legal document will contain all of the necessary definitions for clarity, and will word things accurately to cover all possible loopholes. ToS;DR simply provides a sort of point-form summary of the main rules and points that a person should be aware of in a very basic and quick-to-digest manner.
Adnausem. Built on top of unlock origin it will simulate clicks on ads it hides to mess up your advertising profile. Also has an ad vault so you can see the adverts it is hiding.
Consent-o-matic. Run by a Danish uni, it will auto deny all cookie popups by actually opting out of everything for you.
Pretty standard stuff here:
In terms of actually recommending extensions to others. I'd recommend most of the above, excepting NoScript. If you are using UBO, then the use case for NoScript is a very narrow one where you want selective whitelisting of javascript while visiting a site. UBO's blacklisting approach works for most cases and UBO's whitelisting feature is lacking the granularity of NoScript.
If you use any kind of ad blocker, switch to FireFox
Chrome is deliberately crippling ad block extensions via manifest v3
God, I love Dark Reader. I don't know why anyone makes bright white websites.
I use Dark Reader on my work laptop was well. We had a conference call with a vendor and I was sharing my screen while talking with their team about our usage of their product and one of them stopped me and asked about the UI looking strange. I said, "oh ya, I use Dark Reader because you don't have a native dark mode. You do lose points for that." They had a native dark mode a couple months later.
I've come to the conclusion that UI designers hate their customers' retinas.
Multi-account containers is one of my favorite things about Firefox. I use Temporary Containertabs too, so anything not in an explicit container is in a brand new one of its own.
SponsorBlock - Skips over the bits of a video where sponsors are advertised.
Im using Firefox/a fork of it - please note that many of the below mentioned extensions either only exist for Firefox or don't work well with Chromium browsers due to manifest V3.
Id replace „still dont care about cookies“ with consent-o-magic. It actually deselects tracking cookies instead of ignoring/acknowleding them
Thanks for the tip!
This one is really useful, thanks!
I usually don't get to post anything in these because everyone basically uses the same plugins to unfuck the internet so heres a few that haven't been posted yet
Bye Rupert
Flag Fox
Return Youtube Dislike
The SingleFile extension. It saves the current webpage you're looking at, including all images as a single webpage that you can view offline.
Why would I need offline internet?
Because webpages with valuable information are becoming increasingly rare and nothing lasts forever on the Internet?
Yup! I usually just pdf it.
Fair enough, I'm just not in the business of archiving the internet on my computer.
You already do to some extent, your cache is likely over 2GB already
I don't know man. If I swim in the ocean, I get wet, but I still wouldn't say I'm taking any of the ocean with me as I come out of it.
By the same logic, I'd say I'm not "saving" anything although yes I do understand at all times I will have some gigs of "the internet" on my local machine.
Not quite sure that example tracks. I'd say it's more like you went food shopping yesterday and still have stuff leftover in the fridge today. Sure it might not be as fresh as when you got it from the store, but it's still completely edible.
I disagree with your assessment. To an average user, whatever winds up saved in their browser cache is there mostly unintentionally. Yes, it's saving info from sites they choose to visit, but after that initial choice, the user is out of the loop. The browser saves what it needs to without user notification or input. I might even wager that most users are unaware of their browser cache, or don't know what's in it or how to access it. Therefore, I believe your metaphor perhaps confers too active a decision-making process on something that most people are completely unconscious of.
To be clear, the strawman average user I'm using here is me. I know I have a browser cache, I know vaguely what is stored in it and why, and I know how to clear it if I'm having certain issues. That's about it. I sure as heck don't treat it as an archive.
you make a good point
Ublock Origin, NoScript, Chameleon, Libredirect, DarkReader, OneTab, Stack Overflow Prettifier, Classic Mode For Wikipedia, Vimium
Ublock origin
I haven't seen anyone mention these yet
LibRedirect - redirects common proprietary sites to a free and open source alternative Tampermonkey - allows you to find and install custom open source scripts that add functionality to websites
Check out ViolentMonkey, it's an open source userscript manager
I think that's basically the same thing as Tampermonkey. There's also GreasyFork which hosts custom scripts.
Yeah, except you can check what it does, how it works, and make changes to it.
That's what he said "an open source" (alternative) . If it's basically the same, then violentmonkey is the way to go.
I was a mad Opera user about 25 years ago, it was the best browser by miles at the time. One feature it had was mouse gestures. Mouse gestures and uBlock origin are the only two extensions I can't love without, but these lists never mention them so I feel like the only one who uses them.
It's hard to explain how cool and quick it is to be able to control your browser with the mouse. Open/close tabs, navigate tabs, back/forward etc. It doesn't sound useful, I'm usually a mad keyboard shortcut fiend. But with web browsing in particular, your hand is already on the mouse, scrolling.
The specific extension I use is Gesturefy, I encourage people to install it and give mouse gestures a go.
Vivaldi (chromium) fully supports gestures and happens to have the best tab management on the market. Highly recommended.
https://vivaldi.com/
just installed now, seem great so far. ty
May only be available on Firefox:
Better Youtube Shorts (the shorts act more like normal videos, with rewind controls etc)
Decentraleyes (should help with website load speed by not fetching all the common CDN hosted stuff, as well as provide better privacy)
Song Identifier
Related to CDN stuff, there's LocalCDN, which I believe downloads the most commonly used scripts from various CDNs and hosts them locally, reducing the amount of tracking they can do as they aren't being pulled from the source each time.
That's what decentraleyes does as well
I remember people recommending decentraleyes for some time and then I remember there being an argument against it. I don’t remember what the problem was though.
I happened across a thread on Lemmy recently that discussed the usefulness of certain extensions, and this "Don't Bother" section of the Arkenfox wiki was linked:
https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/wiki/4.1-Extensions#-dont-bother
A lot of conventionally useful extensions like Privacy Badger, HTTPS Everywhere, Decentraleyes/LocalCDN, etc are apparently not necessary (at least in Firefox) if you have certain browser preferences selected, like Strict Mode/Total Cookie Protection.
I felt outdated cause I still run Privacy Badger and Decentraleyes in my Firefox environments, but it was nice to see that a lot of these "extra" features that used to require extensions are now options built into the browser (or Firefox, at least).
I'm surprised I haven't seen any recommendations for "Indie Wiki Redirect" as Fandom (the wiki site, common for games) has started shoving ads down users throats, so wiki maintainers are moving to other sites like wiki.gg, but search engines still show Fandom as the first result.
https://github.com/pixeltris/TwitchAdSolutions if you're a twitch user. Ublock by itself doesn't have a way to handle twitch ads, last I checked.
::: spoiler My list of extensions
Imagus - displays bigger image when hovered over (Imagus Mod recommended);
Sponsor Block - Skips promotions on YT videos;
TOS;DR - summarizes TOS and Privacy Policies;
Cookie Autodelete - erases cookies when you close a tab, can make you log out regularly if you don't put an website on a whitelist, though.
Dark Reader - changes the page CSS and creates a dark mode version of any page, while it isn't always 100% perfect, it has many useful configurations, like whitelisting websites OR words on them, changing to a light mode, but less bright version of it, setting up the time that it activates, and a few more.
Open tabs next to current/Always Right - What the names says, 2 different extensions, but on Chrome I prefer to combine them.
Wayback Machine - has an option to auto archive, can bring you to oldest or newest versions of websites and links.
Search Image - gives you 6 or so options to search for an image online, kind of combines with Imagus.
uBlock Origin - the best ad blocker so far, browsers with built in adblock use it.
Privacy Badger - blocks hidden trackers once it sees then on 3 different websites
WhatFont - displays the font name in a popup, this is more a personal thing, but I enjoy it.
Anti fingerprinting extensions can possibly help.
This is a long list, but these are one of the extensions that I have and I most value, there are some otherb too, but those are more aesthetic than anything. :::
Despite uBlock, my first pick would be Tab Mix Plus. Firefox has yet to properly open up the API for tabs, so you still have to do some mucking around with internals, but TMP gives you multi-row tabs, specific tab-closing patterns, expanded right-click options, and a whole host of insanely useful tab features.
I have been using TMP almost since the beginning, a good 15+ years now, and consider it to be absolutely essential to a proper Firefox setup. I would be happy to punt my TMP config file to anyone interested.
Not a full list, but these are my day to day extensions that I use the most:
UBlock Origin - (obviously)
600% Sound Volume - managing volume for tabs
Dark Reader - Dark theme, that works well for *most *sites. Sometimes I need to manually disable it for certain sites that don't play well, but that's pretty rare
Fake Data - fill forms with random generated data - for every site i need to sign up for and don't want to use PII
addy.io - extension for add.io email forwarding service (subscription needed) generate random emails for every website i sign up for that direct to my main email. If I start getting spam, I know which alias it came from and which site I made it for
password manager extension of choice - I prefer Bitwarden, but I get a 1Password subscription free with work so that's what I use to share password records with family
firefox container manager - very handy for work tabs, logging in with family credentials, etc
Quick note, duckduckgo has a free alias email forwarding service and it integrates with bitwarden
Neat, I'll check it out
**I checked it out, and there's no reply functionality (which I use especially for support tickets), the email forwarding doesnt have a separate app, so it's a bit clunkier to organize each alias through the duckduckgo app/extension itself. I'll stick with addy.io for my use, but good to know they have that.
Tree style tabs
If only it was easier to remove the default tabs from firefox so you don't have duplicate tabs. I recently had problems getting the userCSS to do its thing, trying different directories. In the end the problem however was that I tried to link it with a symbolic link which for some reason doesn't work.
It's easy. I've had that removed in my config for over a decade
I got it work too but wouldn't call it easy. My process involves going to about:config to enable some variable that has a super long name. Then find out where the profiles are saved and remember not to use the "cached" directory version which I always end up on first. Then selecting one of the cryptic profile names and creating some specific directory structure and copying or linking (but no soft linking) my config there.
A simple checkbox in the settings would be nice, or another browser extension. Or is there an easier process?
DarkReader
YouTube:
I never remember the user scripts, gotta check that
For Firefox:
UBlock Origin, of course.
And that extension that turns all Reddit pages into old Reddit pages. (I hate the redesign with a passion.)
I use Tampermonkey with a rule that turns all reddit links to old.reddit. ubo for disabling js on reddit
Just curious but how does disabling javascript on Reddit change the experience? Iir, diaabling it can break certain websites.
It won't allow reddit to have any tracking or analytics since no JS is able to run, it's practically a static html site. As for your experience, it works pretty much the same without JS
Am I mistaken, or would it make Reddit load slightly faster and use less resources? I might just give it a go.
Reddit Enhancement Suite I believe is the one you are referencing.
No, this one is on life support and it's the one which injects extra controls for image links, Twitter links and whatnot. The one you are thinking of is old Reddit redirect. And yeah, couldn't use Reddit without it
On Android I'm using Old Reddit Redirect. (I imagine just changing the URL is simpler, besides I'm not there enough to desire tons of features... I don't even have a Reddit acct. currently.)
On PC I just use old reddit boolmarks, and a bookmarklet that toggles to old Reddit :D
Vimium.
is there a way to disable the plugin stopping when you get to a Firefox page like settings? It's really annoying to be using hotkeys to scroll through tabs then just get stuck and have to use mouse
Test adding the preferences page to "excluded URLs" in the settings of vimium.
Besides what everyone else already said: Vimium-C. It lets you use Vim bindings in your browser. It's also extremely customizable and even works with my bizzare keyboard setup.
Wtf are vim bindings
Bindings that are used in Vim editor
I'm completely clueless
vim is a text editor program which is the centerpiece of a lot of people's workflow.
while vim itself alone is already impressively good, what makes it really stand out is the amount of Keybinds it has and how well you can use them.
hjkl for left up down right, for example. Sounds complicated, takes some getting used to, but after a while, it comes natural. hjkl in particular are great for navigation as that is where ur right hand is on the keyboard all the time, so no need to move it right hand to the arrow keys.
so a lot of other programs offer vim-like Keybinds to navigate or to do text stuff. This extension being one of them.
Linux command line text editor
Imagus feels like in an alternate universe it could be default browser behavior. When you hover over an image it will expand to full resolution and then you can press buttons to open in new tab, download, zoom in, etc.
Works on pretty much any website and is nice if the website has sized the images too small or if your eyesight is less than great.
this looks interesting, gonna give it a go
LibRedirect. Excellent one, that.
Sidebery on Firefox. Life changer for organising tabs.
What does it do?
It’s a tab organiser, like tree style tabs.
Has a bunch of organisation features and makes it easier to manage lots of tabs.
Ublock Origin Privacy badger Cookie AutoDelete
Privacy Badger is useless with uBlock Origin and cookie autodelete is useless with Firefox in strict mode.
As I've understood, privacy badger reliability on heuristic classification of trackers can help blocking the latest trackers that are still not present in ublock origin lists. And cookie autodelete allows me to choose which cookies I want to keep and delete the rest. And Strict mode only blocks cross-site cookies, I want them all deleted.
Privacy Badger stopped using heuristic 4 years ago because it could be used to fingerprint you.
Cookie autodelete simply does not work with Firefox's Total Cookie Protection, which is enabled by default.
https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/cookie-autodelete/
You don't even need an extension to automatically delete cookies, just enable
privacy.sanitize.sanitizeOnShutdownandprivacy.clearOnShutdown_v2.cookiesAndStorage. To add an exception: Ctrl+I>Permissions>Cookies>Allow.Check Arkenfox's extension page and the section about sanitizing on shutdown.
uBO, Facebook container, Bitwarden, Privacy Badger. People say uBO already covers Privacy Badger but I like keeping it there because of the replace widget feature.
I just enjoy usimg both
What's the replace widget feature?
Vimium C
Vimmium C denies the existence of Taiwan. Read the bottom of their github page.
Hmm interesting. Doesn’t have to be that one in particular there are many like it. I just like to have vim bindings for the web.
For sure. There is still the original vimmium and tridactyl.
Okay what does that have to do with the browser extension
Kill Sticky is a really good one, makes even the most bloated websites readable.
uBlock can do this as well, ticking the annoyances options
Not really, uBO blocks some known stuff like cookie notices while Kill Sticky removes every fixed element on a webpage. It's actually more similar to Reader View.
These are a bit unique from the lists everyone else has, I think:
These are the more standard ones that everyone seems to run:
I really only run 3 addons in Firefox currently. Chrome is the same but without UBlock.
Ublock Origin, dark reader, bitwarden and user agent switcher if websites are throwing a fit about firefox.
I try to use a minimum for performance reasons. My big three are uBlock Origin, Dark Reader and a password manager.
I haven't seen these mentioned but they are kinda niche though. I use them for work more than personal usecase but maybe someone else finds them useful.
Copy on select - highlighted text is automatically copied
Snap links - open multiple links or check several boxes using a click-drag interface
I want my RSS
surfingkeys - extension which add vim keybindings for control your browser without mouse
Detrumpify
Outside of what has already been mentioned, I still don't care about cookies and cookie autodelete in tandem. The first accepts cookies. The second deletes them when you are done.
Or use Consent-o-matic to not accept cookies
Cookie autodelete is useless if you use Firefox on strict mode.
Wikiwand, a much better UI for Wikipedia
Foxy Gestures. I love having mouse gestures for Close Tabs on Right, Back, and Close Tab, amongst other.
Zoom Page WE, automatically zoom to full width. Really useful for "convergence" pages, ie: lazy web developers that think every browser wants a 4 word wide column. You have to set "Automatically Zoom" in preferences, it doesn't work out of the box.
Wayback Machine and also archive.is's addons. I archive webpages frequently so they're super helpful. And if a webpage has been taken down you can easily go to an archived version with the Wayback addon.
Also, Vimium C. Not for everyone and definitely down to personal preference rather than "I recommend this to everyone", but I'd struggle to browse the web comfortably without it.
I use uBlock Origin, Malwarebytes, Privacy Badger, Bitdefender's Trafficlight and Simple Translate.
The last one is useful for translating selected text.
On my iPhone I have one called Save All Images. Basically you know how lots of sites especially any kind of social media where they want you there to see things… anyway they use a script or whatnot to prevent holding down on an image to get the save photo prompt. This is an extension that loads all images that are single level referenced and you can save any/all. I use it almost daily. Instagram, and the like, especially, they hate the notion of someone saving something.
In Firefox on my computer I have Element Blocker. Some websites just waste a lot of screen space so if you’re browsing a ton of content you’d like to get the most room, but some stuff takes up portions of the screen fixed and not movable. This extension lets you select an element and it makes it just disappear. It is absolutely essential.
Don't know if the other browsers have it, but I use Marker by robin-rpr on Firefox desktop. Simple Enough extension for being able to draw/annotate/highlight on browser screen. Was doing some college work in class and wanted to be able to quickly write out and convert binary. Helped so much to be able to do it in browser so I could easily see the numbers.
Though, it was last updated October 22, 2022, so keep that in mind if you're like me and don't always like using software that's more than a few years old (games not included). The alternative I saw (Web Marker by SFer) is under an "All Rights Reserved" license, but was updated last month (June 8th), so pick your poison.
if you're going for ultimate privacy... none, ironically.
I disagree on that one. Ad blocking and tracking blocking will be more private.
https://fingerprint.com/blog/ad-blocker-fingerprinting/
Ok fair enough
Metamask, excellent extension.
Ublock, decentralize, adblockplus, noscript, snowflake. (This is what I used on ff, but I use brave for a while now and its so much easier, brave + invidious)
Decentralise and adblockplus do nothing uBlock Origin doesn't already do. You can remove them. Also it's uBlock Origin, not just uBlock.