4 ms·

I'm quite nervous about installing a dozen extensions... doesn't this slow things down a lot? It feels like some of these things (uBlock Origin AND AdNauseum) f

I'm quite nervous about installing a dozen extensions... doesn't this slow things down a lot? It feels like some of these things (uBlock Origin AND AdNauseum) feel redundant. Are these things good or bad ideas if your goal is both privacy and a reasonably snappy browser?

tzahola 8y ago
uBlock origin is an ad/tracking blocker. AdNauseam is an extension that pretends to be clicking on advertisements, thus poisoning the data for advertisers.
bo1024 8y ago
I'd guess the answer changes extension-by-extension. uBlock Origin and javascript blockers prevent a ton of things from ever actually loading, which makes for a much faster web experience -- win-win (although some pages are just blank until you enable enough JS). AdNauseum sounds much slower and more resource-intensive. I like uMatrix (from the creator of uBlock Origin), which by default blocks almost everything from 3rd parties, especially javascript. Without javascript, privacy concerns are vastly diminished and the pages is much smaller and faster. I like uMatrix because it's relatively easy to load only the javascript you want, when you need it.
- everybodyknows 8y ago
  uMatrix's greatest gift, at least to me, is that in a small way it lets us turn the tables on monitoring. Government and city utility sites sending citizen's activity to FB and Google -- who'd have thought that could happen? uMatrix can flag each such occurrence for you.
DavideNL 8y ago
The problem is, installing all these kinds of extensions breaks all kinds of things, some time in the future, when you've long forgotten everything you installed/configured; In theory i'd rather use Firefox over Safari. However in practise, a lot of stuff doesn't work properly in Firefox - because of some extension or some about:config setting i set after reading posts like this. When that happens, i always revert to the trustworthy Safari which just always works (...and has proper pinch-to-zoom, which in my opinion is a very basic feature Firefox is lacking.)
- Fnoord 8y ago
  > installing all these kinds of extensions breaks all kinds of things [...] How odd, my experience is completely different. I browse all the time in Firefox and Chrome with uBlock Origin and Pi-Hole. Not much is broken. In the rare case something is broken I flip DNSCrypt on and use Safari/Edge which don't have uBlock Origin installed. That happens like, what, once a year?
- ballenf 8y ago
  This is a valid point, perhaps more applicable to the parents or siblings we try to protect, but still valid. It would be nice if Firefox had a page that listed every setting that is changed from a default value in one place. You'd still have to investigate extensions separately, but at least all those obscure hidden settings you've changed accessible and visible in one place.
  - thg 8y ago
    > It would be nice if Firefox had a page that listed every setting that is changed from a default value in one place. On about:config, sort after the "Status" column. That'll give you a list of all modified values.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  I've definitely had my "let's switch browsers and see if this works in IE/Edge/etc." moments, but in general, things not working with Firefox with tracking protection enabled is rare. And more importantly, when I need to bypass these safeties by using another browser, I'm doing so intentionally: I know this site is trying to move outside my security comforts, and can address it accordingly, rather than any given website abusing my privacy. And of course, if I switch browsers just for sites that don't work in my Firefox setup, they're loading in a browser I use for little else... so they don't find much anyways.
- ShabbosGoy 8y ago
  IME, Safari lags horribly compared to Firefox WITH extensions. OSX just does not seem to provide intelligent ways to deal with memory management at the framework level. Not sure where the memory leaks are coming from, but on my 2013 iMac some process or processes hungrily eat up large chunks of memory. Forget about running Xcode, my system will just freeze because of swapping.

tzahola 8y ago

uBlock origin is an ad/tracking blocker. AdNauseam is an extension that pretends to be clicking on advertisements, thus poisoning the data for advertisers.

bo1024 8y ago

I'd guess the answer changes extension-by-extension. uBlock Origin and javascript blockers prevent a ton of things from ever actually loading, which makes for a much faster web experience -- win-win (although some pages are just blank until you enable enough JS). AdNauseum sounds much slower and more resource-intensive. I like uMatrix (from the creator of uBlock Origin), which by default blocks almost everything from 3rd parties, especially javascript. Without javascript, privacy concerns are vastly diminished and the pages is much smaller and faster. I like uMatrix because it's relatively easy to load only the javascript you want, when you need it.

everybodyknows 8y ago
uMatrix's greatest gift, at least to me, is that in a small way it lets us turn the tables on monitoring. Government and city utility sites sending citizen's activity to FB and Google -- who'd have thought that could happen? uMatrix can flag each such occurrence for you.

DavideNL 8y ago

The problem is, installing all these kinds of extensions breaks all kinds of things, some time in the future, when you've long forgotten everything you installed/configured; In theory i'd rather use Firefox over Safari. However in practise, a lot of stuff doesn't work properly in Firefox - because of some extension or some about:config setting i set after reading posts like this. When that happens, i always revert to the trustworthy Safari which just always works (...and has proper pinch-to-zoom, which in my opinion is a very basic feature Firefox is lacking.)

Fnoord 8y ago
> installing all these kinds of extensions breaks all kinds of things [...] How odd, my experience is completely different. I browse all the time in Firefox and Chrome with uBlock Origin and Pi-Hole. Not much is broken. In the rare case something is broken I flip DNSCrypt on and use Safari/Edge which don't have uBlock Origin installed. That happens like, what, once a year?
ballenf 8y ago
This is a valid point, perhaps more applicable to the parents or siblings we try to protect, but still valid. It would be nice if Firefox had a page that listed every setting that is changed from a default value in one place. You'd still have to investigate extensions separately, but at least all those obscure hidden settings you've changed accessible and visible in one place.
- thg 8y ago
  > It would be nice if Firefox had a page that listed every setting that is changed from a default value in one place. On about:config, sort after the "Status" column. That'll give you a list of all modified values.
ocdtrekkie 8y ago
I've definitely had my "let's switch browsers and see if this works in IE/Edge/etc." moments, but in general, things not working with Firefox with tracking protection enabled is rare. And more importantly, when I need to bypass these safeties by using another browser, I'm doing so intentionally: I know this site is trying to move outside my security comforts, and can address it accordingly, rather than any given website abusing my privacy. And of course, if I switch browsers just for sites that don't work in my Firefox setup, they're loading in a browser I use for little else... so they don't find much anyways.
ShabbosGoy 8y ago
IME, Safari lags horribly compared to Firefox WITH extensions. OSX just does not seem to provide intelligent ways to deal with memory management at the framework level. Not sure where the memory leaks are coming from, but on my 2013 iMac some process or processes hungrily eat up large chunks of memory. Forget about running Xcode, my system will just freeze because of swapping.