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I keep meaning to make a guide "how to make firefox not suck" but I never get around to it. It's a great browser, but I always forget the default settings are

by rc_kas 8mo ago

I keep meaning to make a guide "how to make firefox not suck" but I never get around to it. It's a great browser, but I always forget the default settings are super stupid. Myself and power users all have it customized to the hilt. It takes some serious work to get a new new FireFox install working nicely.

NoPicklez 8mo ago
Could you mention some of these settings? I moved to Firefox from being a Chrome user and interested to know improvements
drnick1 8mo ago
This. Since Firefox claims to be a privacy-first browser, it should, by default, use the Arkenfox settings (report spoofed values for language, screen size, fonts, and many other attributes that aid fingerprinting), and include uBlock Origin out of the box. But it should go even further; the ultimate goal should be for all Firefox users to basically look the same from the point of view of third parties and put an end to tracking in the modern Web.
- esperent 8mo ago
  > report spoofed values for language, screen size, fonts, and many other attributes that aid fingerprinting How much do these break functionality? If I spoof language, am I going to start seeing websites in German? If I spoof screen size, am I going to get weirdly zoomed websites?
  - mook 8mo ago
    If anything, it might unbreak things. I have my browser set to request, in order, English, a different English, then a non-English language. Some sites (Android docs, Gitlab, F-Droid) will send me the non-English content; Google even preferentially does their AI translation thing instead of the original English.
    - Washuu 8mo ago
      Then for some web sites it won't matter and display the dominant language of the country that you're accessing from. My Firefox sends US English as the only preferred language, but a ton of US tech companies default to showing web sites in Japanese without a way to change it because I access them from Japan. It's pretty typical of American companies that don't understand localization and accessibility.
    - lstodd 8mo ago
      Most infuriating is when they do it based on GeoIP. So what I'm in Istanbul currently, I know maybe a dozen words in Turkish. But no, and also they insist on having broken language switchers.
  - drnick1 8mo ago
    The settings used by Arkenfox broadly mirror that of the Tor browser. If you find Tor usable, then Firefox with this config should be fine.
- wiredpancake 8mo ago
  [dead]
Retr0id 8mo ago
Likewise. The main thing I change is enforcing separate address bar and search box. It takes a lot of configuring to make the address bar stop being "smart" (i.e. never send things I type there to a search engine even if they're not valid URLs), and I can't even remember what options I used to fix it.
shawn_w 8mo ago
The only things I do with a new copy of Firefox is install uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger and it works quite nicely. (Oh, and an extension that redirects reddit links to old reddit, and RES)
- lencastre 8mo ago
  privacy badger is still alive??
  - shawn_w 8mo ago
    Um, yes? Last update in December. Did someone prematurely call it dead?
  - fsckboy 8mo ago
    i think what keeps it alive is that it shows up on the default "extensions you might especially like" screen inside the "install extensions" menu
- guimi 8mo ago
  If I'm not mistaken, no need to use Privacy Badger if you're already using uBlock Origin and Firefox Total Cookie Protection. https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1d3so6g/should_i_use_ublock_origin_and_privacy_badger/ https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1d3so6g/should_i_u...
  - ghostwords 8mo ago
    Nah, Privacy Badger is different. PB doesn't use ad blocker lists and comes with its own special features like replacing tweets with click-to-activate placeholders. And if you want to block all ads, PB works well in combination with ad blockers. As for Firefox’s Total Cookie Protection, cookies are not the only tracking vector: https://privacybadger.org/#Is-Privacy-Badger-compatible-with-Firefox%27s-built-in-content-blocking https://privacybadger.org/#Is-Privacy-Badger-compatible-with...
bxparks 8mo ago
No kidding. I had to create a Google Doc document to remember all the little things that I have to clobber in Firefox to make it behave reasonably. Here is an excerpt of how I clobber the defaults: - Enable pixel-perfect smooth scrolling (Linux): MOZ_USE_XINPUT2=1 (why do we still have to do this??) - Enable: Ctrl-Tab cycles through recent used order - Disable: "Show an image preview when you hover on a tab" - Disable: "Use AI to suggest tabs and a name for tab group" - Disable: "Enable Picture-in-Picture video controls" - Disable: "Control media via keyboard, headset, or virtual interface" - Disable: "Recommend extensions as you browse" - Disable: "Recommend features as you browse" - Disable: "Enable link previews" - Homepage and new windows: Blank page - New tabs: Blank page - Disable: Web Search - Disable: Weather - Disable: Shortcuts - Disable: Recommended stories - Disable: Support Firefox - Disable: "Save and autofill payment info" - Disable: "Save and autofill addresses" - Disable: "Ask to save passwords" - Locations: Select "Block new requests asking to access your location" - Notification: Select "Block new requests asking to allow notifications" - Autoplay: Select "Block Audio and Video" - Virtual Reality: Select "Block new requests asking to access your virtual reality devices" - Default Search engine: DuckDuckGo - Disable "Suggest search engines to use" - Disable "Quick actions" - Disable "Suggestions from Firefox" - Disable: "Title Bar" - Default Zoom: 110%, 120%, depending on the laptop I probably forgot a few things. And I install the following extensions: - uBlock Origin - Privacy Badger - Facebook Container - Firefox Multi-account Container
- em-miyamoto 8mo ago
  Or you could just use user.js and not have to change every setting manually each time you start from scratch.
  - LetMeLogin 8mo ago
    Yes, Betterfox all the way in + few custom settings. I am still in position where I need to put some small pipeline to automatically download latest + merge my stuff and deploy, but even if it's manual every month or two it's not too bad.
  - bxparks 8mo ago
dgellow 8mo ago
A coworker (hi Robert!) created his own version of Firefox that doesn’t suck, with sane defaults and keyboard centric: https://github.com/glide-browser/glide https://github.com/glide-browser/glide Pretty impressive project, and it’s really nice to use, I would recommend to give it a try

by rc_kas 8mo ago

NoPicklez 8mo ago

Could you mention some of these settings? I moved to Firefox from being a Chrome user and interested to know improvements

drnick1 8mo ago

This. Since Firefox claims to be a privacy-first browser, it should, by default, use the Arkenfox settings (report spoofed values for language, screen size, fonts, and many other attributes that aid fingerprinting), and include uBlock Origin out of the box. But it should go even further; the ultimate goal should be for all Firefox users to basically look the same from the point of view of third parties and put an end to tracking in the modern Web.

esperent 8mo ago
> report spoofed values for language, screen size, fonts, and many other attributes that aid fingerprinting How much do these break functionality? If I spoof language, am I going to start seeing websites in German? If I spoof screen size, am I going to get weirdly zoomed websites?
- mook 8mo ago
  If anything, it might unbreak things. I have my browser set to request, in order, English, a different English, then a non-English language. Some sites (Android docs, Gitlab, F-Droid) will send me the non-English content; Google even preferentially does their AI translation thing instead of the original English.
  - Washuu 8mo ago
    Then for some web sites it won't matter and display the dominant language of the country that you're accessing from. My Firefox sends US English as the only preferred language, but a ton of US tech companies default to showing web sites in Japanese without a way to change it because I access them from Japan. It's pretty typical of American companies that don't understand localization and accessibility.
  - lstodd 8mo ago
    Most infuriating is when they do it based on GeoIP. So what I'm in Istanbul currently, I know maybe a dozen words in Turkish. But no, and also they insist on having broken language switchers.
- drnick1 8mo ago
  The settings used by Arkenfox broadly mirror that of the Tor browser. If you find Tor usable, then Firefox with this config should be fine.
wiredpancake 8mo ago
[dead]

Retr0id 8mo ago

Likewise. The main thing I change is enforcing separate address bar and search box. It takes a lot of configuring to make the address bar stop being "smart" (i.e. never send things I type there to a search engine even if they're not valid URLs), and I can't even remember what options I used to fix it.

shawn_w 8mo ago

The only things I do with a new copy of Firefox is install uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger and it works quite nicely. (Oh, and an extension that redirects reddit links to old reddit, and RES)

lencastre 8mo ago
privacy badger is still alive??
- shawn_w 8mo ago
  Um, yes? Last update in December. Did someone prematurely call it dead?
- fsckboy 8mo ago
  i think what keeps it alive is that it shows up on the default "extensions you might especially like" screen inside the "install extensions" menu
guimi 8mo ago
If I'm not mistaken, no need to use Privacy Badger if you're already using uBlock Origin and Firefox Total Cookie Protection. https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1d3so6g/should_i_use_ublock_origin_and_privacy_badger/ https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1d3so6g/should_i_u...
- ghostwords 8mo ago
  Nah, Privacy Badger is different. PB doesn't use ad blocker lists and comes with its own special features like replacing tweets with click-to-activate placeholders. And if you want to block all ads, PB works well in combination with ad blockers. As for Firefox’s Total Cookie Protection, cookies are not the only tracking vector: https://privacybadger.org/#Is-Privacy-Badger-compatible-with-Firefox%27s-built-in-content-blocking https://privacybadger.org/#Is-Privacy-Badger-compatible-with...

bxparks 8mo ago

No kidding. I had to create a Google Doc document to remember all the little things that I have to clobber in Firefox to make it behave reasonably. Here is an excerpt of how I clobber the defaults: - Enable pixel-perfect smooth scrolling (Linux): MOZ_USE_XINPUT2=1 (why do we still have to do this??) - Enable: Ctrl-Tab cycles through recent used order - Disable: "Show an image preview when you hover on a tab" - Disable: "Use AI to suggest tabs and a name for tab group" - Disable: "Enable Picture-in-Picture video controls" - Disable: "Control media via keyboard, headset, or virtual interface" - Disable: "Recommend extensions as you browse" - Disable: "Recommend features as you browse" - Disable: "Enable link previews" - Homepage and new windows: Blank page - New tabs: Blank page - Disable: Web Search - Disable: Weather - Disable: Shortcuts - Disable: Recommended stories - Disable: Support Firefox - Disable: "Save and autofill payment info" - Disable: "Save and autofill addresses" - Disable: "Ask to save passwords" - Locations: Select "Block new requests asking to access your location" - Notification: Select "Block new requests asking to allow notifications" - Autoplay: Select "Block Audio and Video" - Virtual Reality: Select "Block new requests asking to access your virtual reality devices" - Default Search engine: DuckDuckGo - Disable "Suggest search engines to use" - Disable "Quick actions" - Disable "Suggestions from Firefox" - Disable: "Title Bar" - Default Zoom: 110%, 120%, depending on the laptop I probably forgot a few things. And I install the following extensions: - uBlock Origin - Privacy Badger - Facebook Container - Firefox Multi-account Container

em-miyamoto 8mo ago
Or you could just use user.js and not have to change every setting manually each time you start from scratch.
- LetMeLogin 8mo ago
  Yes, Betterfox all the way in + few custom settings. I am still in position where I need to put some small pipeline to automatically download latest + merge my stuff and deploy, but even if it's manual every month or two it's not too bad.
- bxparks 8mo ago

dgellow 8mo ago

A coworker (hi Robert!) created his own version of Firefox that doesn’t suck, with sane defaults and keyboard centric: https://github.com/glide-browser/glide https://github.com/glide-browser/glide Pretty impressive project, and it’s really nice to use, I would recommend to give it a try