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A lot of your privacy related extensions are obsoleted by features in uBlock Origin. Consent-O-Matic: use annoyances filter list PopUpOFF: sounds useless, use

by eNV25 4y ago

A lot of your privacy related extensions are obsoleted by features in uBlock Origin. Consent-O-Matic: use annoyances filter list PopUpOFF: sounds useless, use filter list Privacy Badger: sounds useless, use filter list ClearURLs: use url cleaning filter list

emacdona 4y ago
Thanks for the tips. I will check out the filter lists you mention. You might be wrong about PopUpOFF, though. I started using it as a solution to websites that pop-up an overlay asking me to subscribe to their newsletter when I mouse-out of the window. It is fantastic at putting an end to that.
doodlesdev 4y ago
uBlock Origin URL filter lists don't work the same as ClearURLs. Privacy Badger is an extension by the EFF. It blocks cookies, that's it. The other one I don't know, but you should stop being condescending when teaching people about things you don't know about. Using uBlock Origin only might be a good option for some cases, but it's not a silver bullet. For reference, ClearURLs can bypass redirects, has etags protection, both features which uBlock origin does not have (or at least didn't have last time I checked). Privacy Badger removes outgoing link tracking by Facebook and Google, has custom well-tested lists to block cookies or blocking third-party without blocking them entirely when necessary/useful. It also has quite a few smart learning features (not the ones Google tells are "fingerprinting" you) such as blocking canvas-based fingerprinting on the go. uBlock Origin is awesome. The default blocking lists are great. The other ones provided with the extension are even better. But it's not a magic silver bullet. What you're going to use really depends on what you want out of your browsing experience, what your threat model is, etc.
- nelox 4y ago
  How does Ghostery compare?
  - dngray 4y ago
    It's also redundant, just use uBlock Origin.
- GinsengJar 4y ago
  Original commenter is right about the feature obsolescence and didn't seem condescending to me. Just more or less critical of the general idea, as one doesn't really need so many extensions for privacy, which most of the list appeared to be tackling. That said, URL filtering isn't necessarily effective at keeping your behavior private either. There's an argument to be made about ClearURLs and URL filtering in general being counter intuitive, as you might stick out among a sea of other users with marketing params in their URLs. Still wishing for a Tor-like solution to anonymizing all users on a browser configuration level.
  - doodlesdev 4y ago
    > Original commenter is right about the feature obsolescence and didn't seem condescending to me Maybe it wasn't, intention and tone are really hard to get through text, that's just how it felt to me when I read it. > That said, URL filtering isn't necessarily effective at keeping your behavior private either. There's an argument to be made about ClearURLs and URL filtering in general being counter intuitive, as you might stick out among a sea of other users with marketing params in their URLs. I'm personally kind of torn on this kind of thing, because fingerprinting is the default in the www since you expose your IP to every server you connect to. I personally believe it's worth to try and reclaim the privacy even if it could expose to even more advanced tracking techniques. Also things like removing google analytics tags and removing the "google.com" of urls in google searches is probably really effective. (you'll notice that Google only adds this redirect mechanism if you have JavaScript disabled, probably because they don't need that if you're running JavaScript anyways). > Still wishing for a Tor-like solution to anonymizing all users on a browser configuration level. One can wish. I'm very pessimistic about Tor and i2p though, the market incentives to block these networks are just too great to ignore for most business. Ultimately though I believe the problem is that privacy is not a computers problem but a human one.
- pmoriarty 4y ago
  What's etags protection?
  - dngray 4y ago
    It's not really important https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2021/01/26/supercookie-protections/ https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2021/01/26/supercookie-pro... The extra functionality provided by ClearURLs is not not needed with Ublock Origin's removeparam feature.
Semaphor 4y ago
> Consent-O-Matic: use annoyances filter list Not the same, COM handles far more than the annoyance feature list.

by eNV25 4y ago

emacdona 4y ago

Thanks for the tips. I will check out the filter lists you mention. You might be wrong about PopUpOFF, though. I started using it as a solution to websites that pop-up an overlay asking me to subscribe to their newsletter when I mouse-out of the window. It is fantastic at putting an end to that.

doodlesdev 4y ago

uBlock Origin URL filter lists don't work the same as ClearURLs. Privacy Badger is an extension by the EFF. It blocks cookies, that's it. The other one I don't know, but you should stop being condescending when teaching people about things you don't know about. Using uBlock Origin only might be a good option for some cases, but it's not a silver bullet. For reference, ClearURLs can bypass redirects, has etags protection, both features which uBlock origin does not have (or at least didn't have last time I checked). Privacy Badger removes outgoing link tracking by Facebook and Google, has custom well-tested lists to block cookies or blocking third-party without blocking them entirely when necessary/useful. It also has quite a few smart learning features (not the ones Google tells are "fingerprinting" you) such as blocking canvas-based fingerprinting on the go. uBlock Origin is awesome. The default blocking lists are great. The other ones provided with the extension are even better. But it's not a magic silver bullet. What you're going to use really depends on what you want out of your browsing experience, what your threat model is, etc.

nelox 4y ago
How does Ghostery compare?
- dngray 4y ago
  It's also redundant, just use uBlock Origin.
GinsengJar 4y ago
Original commenter is right about the feature obsolescence and didn't seem condescending to me. Just more or less critical of the general idea, as one doesn't really need so many extensions for privacy, which most of the list appeared to be tackling. That said, URL filtering isn't necessarily effective at keeping your behavior private either. There's an argument to be made about ClearURLs and URL filtering in general being counter intuitive, as you might stick out among a sea of other users with marketing params in their URLs. Still wishing for a Tor-like solution to anonymizing all users on a browser configuration level.
- doodlesdev 4y ago
  > Original commenter is right about the feature obsolescence and didn't seem condescending to me Maybe it wasn't, intention and tone are really hard to get through text, that's just how it felt to me when I read it. > That said, URL filtering isn't necessarily effective at keeping your behavior private either. There's an argument to be made about ClearURLs and URL filtering in general being counter intuitive, as you might stick out among a sea of other users with marketing params in their URLs. I'm personally kind of torn on this kind of thing, because fingerprinting is the default in the www since you expose your IP to every server you connect to. I personally believe it's worth to try and reclaim the privacy even if it could expose to even more advanced tracking techniques. Also things like removing google analytics tags and removing the "google.com" of urls in google searches is probably really effective. (you'll notice that Google only adds this redirect mechanism if you have JavaScript disabled, probably because they don't need that if you're running JavaScript anyways). > Still wishing for a Tor-like solution to anonymizing all users on a browser configuration level. One can wish. I'm very pessimistic about Tor and i2p though, the market incentives to block these networks are just too great to ignore for most business. Ultimately though I believe the problem is that privacy is not a computers problem but a human one.
pmoriarty 4y ago
What's etags protection?
- dngray 4y ago
  It's not really important https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2021/01/26/supercookie-protections/ https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2021/01/26/supercookie-pro... The extra functionality provided by ClearURLs is not not needed with Ublock Origin's removeparam feature.

Semaphor 4y ago

> Consent-O-Matic: use annoyances filter list Not the same, COM handles far more than the annoyance feature list.