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Best and free browser extensions to improve privacy and web experience in 2021

guillaumehr.medium.com

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Re: Best and free browser extensions to improve privacy and web experience in 2021

#2

Post by MrPatan »

Any browser extension can at any time be hacked by, or sold to, malicious actors that will make your computer theirs.

If you wouldn't run a random executable from the internet to see "times around the world" don't get an extension to do it. It's the same risk.

Re: Best and free browser extensions to improve privacy and web experience in 2021

#3

Post by ffpip »

1. uBlock Origin is an essential addon.

2. Ninja Cookie - Cookie banners and other annoyances can be blocked with uBlock Origin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TvCGWwQr5o

3. Lastpass - Use your browser's built in manager. Chrome has a custom sync password and Firefox has a master password option. One less extension.

4. HTTPs everywhere can be avoided if you use Brave, as it automatically upgrades to HTTPs when available. You can set dom.security.https_only_mode to true in Firefox for a https only browsing experience.

5. Decentraleyes - Not that useful as it doesn't contain too many cached resources. Use LocalCDN if absolutely insist on using something similar.

6. Nimbus Screenshot - Screenity (https://github.com/alyssaxuu/screenity) is open source and much better.

The more extensions you install, the more people you are trusting not to sell out. Most of these extensions request access to all sites (passwords, cookies, browsing history). Try to keep the number of extensions as low as possible.

Productivity extensions usually lead to more wastage of time. I do not recommend anything. Use whatever you like.

Re: Best and free browser extensions to improve privacy and web experience in 2021

#5

Post by djeiasbsbo »

MrPatan wrote: post #2

Any browser extension can at any time be hacked by, or sold to, malicious actors that will make your computer theirs. If you wouldn't run a random executable from the internet to see "times around the world" don't get an extension to do it. It's the same risk.

That is not true at all. Browser extensions are written in JavaScript, so the source code can be inspected before installation or at runtime (Debuggers are present in major browsers). It might be the same as running a script or binary without looking at it first but it's not the same as just running a compiled proprietary binary.

Re: Best and free browser extensions to improve privacy and web experience in 2021

#8

Post by turblety »

baliex wrote: post #7

Very surprised to see Grammarly on a privacy oriented list. Aren't they shipping off everything you type to their servers?

I feel like maybe the title means "improve privacy" and "improve web experiance" as a mixed list. As in, each item will be one, not both. It's a very strange list/mix up, and in my opinion a poor article.

Grammarly would be awful for privacy. As would LastPass and EverNote.

Re: Best and free browser extensions to improve privacy and web experience in 2021

#9

Post by jjbinx007 »

djeiasbsbo wrote: post #5
MrPatan wrote: post #2

Any browser extension can at any time be hacked by, or sold to, malicious actors that will make your computer theirs. If you wouldn't run a random executable from the internet to see "times around the world" don't get an extension to do it. It's the same risk.

That is not true at all. Browser extensions are written in JavaScript, so the source code can be inspected before installation or at runtime (Debuggers are present in major browsers). It might be the same as running a script or binary without looking at it first but it's not the same as just running a compiled proprietary binary.

Do you analyse the code in your browser extensions every day?

Also, this is likely far beyond the capabilities of the average computer user anyway.

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