Contents
- Privacy Badger
- uBlock Origin
- LessPass
- Cookie AutoDelete
- HTTPS Everywhere
- Decentraleyes
- uMatrix
- Search Encrypt
- TrackMeNot
- NoScript Security Suite
Privacy Badger
Privacy Badger is a tracker blocker that learns which trackers to block. Rather than maintaining a blacklist of “tracking” domains, Privacy Badger watches which domains follow you from site to site and blocks them once it sees the same tracker on three different websites. Another way Privacy Badger protects you is by removing link click tracking on Facebook, Twitter and Google. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) created Privacy Badger to analyze and block internet trackers or ads which violate user consent while not requiring any specific knowledge or configuration by the user.
EFF’s goal is to develop rigorous algorithmic and policy methods for detecting and preventing non-consensual tracking. The other products on the market, like Disconnect, Adblock Plus and Ghostery, are useful tools, but don’t offer the same level of tracker protection without some manual configuration changes. Privacy Badger keeps note of the “third party” domains that embed assets on the websites you visit. Tracking techniques that Privacy Badger looks out for are uniquely identifying cookies, local storage cookies, and fingerprinting.
View Privacy Badger Firefox Add-On
uBlock Origin
uBlock Origin is one of the most popular ad blockers on the internet. It’s Firefox version has over 5 million users, and it’s Chrome version has over 10 million users. uBlock Origin is known for its speed and for being easy on CPU and memory. It’s free and open-source, making it appealing to people skeptical of other ad blocker providers on the internet. uBlock Origin’s stated purpose is to give users the ability to enforce their own content-filtering and ad blocking choices. In May 2016, Mozilla named uBlock Origin “Pick of the Month”.
Compared with Privacy Badger, uBlock Origin is a more complex tool. It’s a better choice for people with more advanced computer knowledge. It’s “settings” page lets you add your own blocking rules and filters. The more filters you have enabled, the more memory you’ll use.
uBlock Origin uses these blacklists by default:
- EasyList
- Peter Lowe’s Ad Server List
- EasyPrivacy
- Malware Domains
View uBlock Origin Firefox Add-On
LessPass
LessPass is a stateless password manager that you don’t have to constantly sync to access your passwords. The LessPass Firefox add-on lets you to create passwords directly in your browser. It’s unique because it doesn’t save your passwords in a database, and only relies on one master password in a function to give you your passwords. LessPass’ function takes constant parameters that will always be available, combines them with the master password and “calculates” your password. Input a login, a master password, a website, and options and it will return one unique password.
LessPass’ Firefox add-on gives you the same security as the other versions of LessPass. There’s much less risk for losing control of your access thanks to the “function” used to get your passwords, rather than just storing them in a database. Even the most secure database is vulnerable to getting hacked.
Cookie AutoDelete
Cookie AutoDelete makes managing the cookies your browser stores simple and easy. It automatically deletes unused cookies from your closed tabs while keeping the ones you want. The extension makes it easy to white list cookies that you actually want. You can then export this list to use on a different computer.
You can clear your cookies for a single domain with Cookie AutoDelete. It has “Cookie Cleanup” for all domains, for the current domain you’re on, or for cookies besides the site you’re currently on.
View Cookie AutoDelete Firefox Add-On
HTTPS Everywhere
HTTPS Everywhere makes it easy to browse the web using the encrypted version of the websites you visit, if they support HTTPS. If HTTPS Everywhere detects that a site supports SSL/TLS encryption, it will force the site to load its secure version.
Many sites on the web offer some limited support for encryption over HTTPS, but make it difficult to use. For instance, they may default to unencrypted HTTP, or fill encrypted pages with links that go back to the unencrypted site. The HTTPS Everywhere extension fixes these problems by rewriting all requests to these sites to HTTPS.
View HTTPS Everywhere Firefox Add-On
Decentraleyes
Decentraleyes protects you against trackers from centralized content delivery systems on the internet. This add-on protects you from networks like Google Hosted Libraries and works without breaking the sites you visit. Decentraleyes goes beyond basic ad and tracker blocking, which could possibly lead to breaking websites. But its goal is to cut out the middleman by providing lightning speed delivery of local files to improve online privacy. It complements regular ad blocks like uBlock Origin.
View Decentraleyes Firefox Add-On
uMatrix
uMatrix is a resource blocking tool that lets you block any request made by your browser. You can simply click on a portion of a page to block scripts, iframes, ads or domains. It calls itself a “point-and-click matrix-based firewall, with many privacy-enhancing tools. You just point & click to forbid/allow any class of requests made by your browser – scripts, iframes, ads, facebook.
uMatrix put you in full control of where your browser is allowed to connect, what type of data it is allowed to download, and what it is allowed to execute. Nobody else decides for you: You choose. You are in full control of your privacy.
Out of the box, uMatrix works in relax block-all/allow-exceptionally mode, meaning web sites which require 3rd-party scripts are likely to be “broken”. With two clicks, uMatrix can be set to work in allow-all/block-exceptionally mode, which generally will not break web sites.
You can blacklist/whitelist a single cell, an entire row, a group of rows, an entire column, or the whole matrix with just one click.
The goal of this extension is to make the allowing or blocking of web sites, wholly or partly, as straightforward as possible, so as to encourage users to care about their privacy.
This extension is also useful to understand what the web page in your browser is doing, often without your knowledge. You have full ability to see and decide with whom a web page communicates, and to restrict these communications to specific classes of objects within the web page.
Search Encrypt
Search the web in confidence by redirecting searches that may be tracked to Search Encrypt, a private search engine.
Search Encrypt uses local encryption to keep your searches hidden, even if someone has access to your computer. With AES-256 encryption and SSL encryption, your searches are more private than the big search engines. We then privately retrieve your results from our network of search partners. Search Encrypt uses an expiring encryption key on your search terms to keep them private.
Search Encrypt gives users total confidence and privacy when searching the internet. Unlike search engines that track you, we don’t track any of your user-identifiable information. Searching the web shouldn’t require handing over tons of your personal data, which is why we’ve created our extension to keep you safe on the internet.
View Search Encrypt Firefox Add-On
TrackMeNot
An artware browser add-on to protect privacy in web-search. By issuing randomized queries to common search-engines, TrackMeNot obfuscates your search profile and registers your discontent with surreptitious tracking.
TrackMeNot is a lightweight browser extension that helps protect web searchers from surveillance and data-profiling by search engines. It does so not by means of concealment or encryption (i.e. covering one’s tracks), but instead by the opposite strategy: noise and obfuscation. With TrackMeNot, actual web searches, lost in a cloud of false leads, are essentially hidden in plain view. User-installed TrackMeNot works with Firefox and Chrome browsers, integrates with all popular search engines, and requires no 3rd-party servers or services. The browser extension was made by computer science students at NYU who had issues with logging user search activities and creating individual search profiles.
View TrackMeNot Firefox Add-On
NoScript Security Suite
NoScript Security Suite gives you security and protection from tracking scripts and other exploits. This add-on lets you control which sites you want to load content in your browser, which can protect you form XSS, clickjacking, and attacks like “Spectre” or “Meltdown”. PC World awarded NoScript the “World Class Award”. It gives you high-level security protection without losing any of your browser’s functionality.