Ask HN: What browser extensions are a must-have in 2021?

Lots of good extensions in this thread.

Here are some optional extensions I like:

- Twemex - https://twemex.app/ - Adds a really useful sidebar to Twitter.

- Recipe Filter - https://github.com/sean-public/RecipeFilter - Focuses recipes front and center on food blogs

- Notion Boost - https://gourav.io/notion-boost - Adds a lot of really nice features to Notion

- Tampermonkey - https://www.tampermonkey.net/ - Lets you create your own JS customizations on web pages without needing to make a whole browser extension.

I really wish it was far easier for everyday people to make their own personal browser extension-like functionality and share it with others. Extending the apps we use feels really empowering and can help people transition from helpless consumers of apps to authors of how their computer works. Here's an essay I like detailing this view:

https://www.geoffreylitt.com/2019/07/29/browser-extensions.h...

And while I'm here I'd also like to plug a service I wrote that lets you easily add paid features to extensions you develop:

https://extensionpay.com

I made it to use myself but lots of developers have found it useful in monetizing their extensions without ads or selling user data. And even to my surprise, users are actually willing to pay for browser extensions! The service has made devs over $13k since I launched earlier this year!

> Kind of annoying having to whitelist every website I visit on NoScript these days but worth it imho

In case you didn't already know, uBO does integrate a script blocker, with the advantage over NoScript that it supports per-site rules. I wrote a Twitter thread about this as an introduction a while ago: https://twitter.com/gorhill/status/1379819815657996290>.

Also, a negative interference when using another script blocker extension along uBO is that these can prevent uBO from redirecting blocked resources to local neutered ones[1], beside making managing rules more complicated since the ruleset of two extensions have to be investigated when trying to unbreak a site.

* * *

[1] Redirecting to neutered local resources is useful to prevent site breakage and also to defuse anti-content blocker mechanisms.

I just want to say thank you for your amazing work.

Export Tabs URLs

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/export-tabs-u...

Used to dump tab URLs into a text file for later use. Has the option of selecting and editing the text of the file before saving, filtering the file contents, only selecting tabs from the current window in Firefox, and adding the title of each tab above its URL.

The line of defence - for that is what most extensions are used for - actually starts much earlier, in the router. Using iptables and ipset it blocks known nefarious network ranges. On that same router lives the DNS proxy which, fed using the same filter lists as used by blocking extensions, relegates unwanted domain names to a local address which serves nothing. Once past the router there are a few application proxies which take care of search (using the Searx meta-search engine, replies are proxied), Youtube (proxied through invidious), Twitter (proxied through nitter) and Reddit (libreddit - hardly ever used here). Then, on browsers:

- uBlock Origin blocks unwanted content

- Privacy Redirect redirects Youtube, Twitter and Reddit to the aforementioned local proxies

- Containers with Transitions (a forked version of Multi-Account Containers) is used to separate a number of well-known data-hoarding services (e.g. anything owned by AlphabetGoogle, anything owned by FaceMetaBook) by owner

- SwitchyOmega is used to choose one of several Tor instances in case I need to appear to come from a different IP address.

- IPFS Companion makes it easier to access ipfs:// and ipns:// links

- Open With to open links in other tools - this can be anything you like, I'm e.g. using this to mirror material likely to be censured, feed magnet: links to the server-resident Transmission daemon, command the local netcast (which is also called 'podcast') instance to create audio-only versions of material I want to listen to while working outside, etc.

All these are used on Firefox on Linux, some on Firefox on Android. I hardly ever use Chromium but for those times I do I have most of them installed there as well except for Containers with Transitions which is Firefox-only.