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Firefox Configuration Guide for Privacy Freaks and Performance Buffs

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Re: Firefox Configuration Guide for Privacy Freaks and Performance Buffs

#51

Post by rockdoe »

What I don't understand is why someone would go to the problems of essentially spending a lot of time breaking their Firefox installation instead of using Tor directly when they care about privacy. Most of the tweaks boil down to turning Firefox defaults into Tor defaults, but without the benefit of actual anonymity, unless you're going to go ahead and install and trust the VPN provider which you also need.

The majority of these settings aren't the default because they cause significant site breakage (uBlock is maybe the exception). If they could have been enabled by default, they would have. Mozilla has been taking gradual steps in that direction, and backed off/reverted a few times when too much stuff broke.

Use Tor Browser. If a site breaks, at least you'll know why, and you have the choice of whether it warrants lowering your privacy.

Re: Firefox Configuration Guide for Privacy Freaks and Performance Buffs

#52

Post by severine »

lucideer wrote: post #11
feelin_googley wrote: post #5

An opinion: The most serious threats to user privacy from advertising companies are the "features" of the browser that allow data to be sent to or from the users computer without any input from the user . In other words, the features that let developers of websites trigger GET and POST, to "push" media to the users computer and allowing "pulling" user data indiscrinately, without explicit consent and sometimes withou…

This is a great post, and is exactly the line I've been thinking along for a long time. I currently use uMatrix for this and it implements this almost perfectly. However, it's scope is too narrow: it only controls requests within the webpage, so doesn't have access to it many requests the browser will make outside of that scope. If you start by broadening the scope from webpage to browser, you eventually get to the o…

>it only controls requests within the webpage, so doesn't have access to it many requests the browser will make outside of that scope.

You also have the "behind the scene" settings:

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Behind-the-scene-netw...

That's for uBlock Origin but I seem to recall it works similarly in uMatrix (can't check now).

Re: Firefox Configuration Guide for Privacy Freaks and Performance Buffs

#53

Post by tedcrilly »

chrisan wrote: post #43
ams6110 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I've tried some of these extremely hardened configurations but ultimately there's too much breakage. My config now is basically: - uBlock Origin in default configuration - No 3rd party cookies (breaks some things, but not too many) - Clear history and cookies on exit Combined with an /etc/hosts file, and rather frequent browser restarts (generally daily).

> Combined with an /etc/hosts file Check out pi-hole and manage that for your whole family

If you're using OpenWRT/Lede you can implement this with the adblock package: https://github.com/openwrt/packages/tree/master/net/adblock/...

Re: Firefox Configuration Guide for Privacy Freaks and Performance Buffs

#54

Post by syshum »

rockdoe wrote: post #51

What I don't understand is why someone would go to the problems of essentially spending a lot of time breaking their Firefox installation instead of using Tor directly when they care about privacy. Most of the tweaks boil down to turning Firefox defaults into Tor defaults, but without the benefit of actual anonymity, unless you're going to go ahead and install and trust the VPN provider which you also need. The major…

>>Mozilla has been taking gradual steps in that direction

I disagree with this.. I do not see Mozilla taking any steps toward privacy at all, infact in many ways they are taking steps AWAY from privacy with many of their recent actions and blunders. From their use of opt-out rather than opt-in for various privacy invading features, their pushing adware to all users via what was suppose to be a QA/Feedback feature, their purchasing and invest in certain companies...

No the Mozilla Foundation from the 90's is long dead, it has been replaced by the Mozilla Corporation, which is really no different than the Google Corporation or the Microsoft Corporation

Re: Firefox Configuration Guide for Privacy Freaks and Performance Buffs

#55

Post by maxerickson »

suprfnk wrote: post #32
ams6110 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I've tried some of these extremely hardened configurations but ultimately there's too much breakage. My config now is basically: - uBlock Origin in default configuration - No 3rd party cookies (breaks some things, but not too many) - Clear history and cookies on exit Combined with an /etc/hosts file, and rather frequent browser restarts (generally daily).

> Clear history [..] on exit Why the history? That's not readable by anyone except you, right? > Clear [..] cookies on exit So do you have to keep logging in to websites daily? Isn't that very annoying?

You can whitelist exceptions.

Which of course trades off against privacy.

Re: Firefox Configuration Guide for Privacy Freaks and Performance Buffs

#56

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

Santosh83 wrote: post #37
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #7

Wow, this is a great post. Thank you for taking the time to write this up. I've been using Firefox for a while now, but kept most settings fairly close to the defaults. I'm unhappy with many of their defaults, but hadn't been motivated to start tweaking stuff. I'll note that disabling custom fonts breaks certain sites. I don't consider it a deal-breaker, but it's worth being aware. Many sites abuse fonts for icons. D…

> Since we're already on the topic of configuring Firefox, I have a tangential question. Does anyone know how to configure Firefox to automatically save rar files? You usually receive the option to always save different file types, but the choice isn't available for rar files, so you always receive a download popup. Maybe I'm missing something but for me, going to the Options tab, selecting General tab, then going to…

There no RAR file entry in the list. It might be a macOS quirk, or it might somehow be caused by some sort of conflict with The Unarchiver. I'll probably play around with uninstalling it and trying other tools to see if that helps. Perhaps there's some sort of unexpected sandbox restriction with the default file handlers due to The Unarchiver having been installed from the App Store, or a bug with the app itself.

I just noticed that in the popup RAR files are identified as binary, while ZIP files are properly identified. Gonna have to dig into it a bit.

I've used Wireshark before, but most requests nowadays are using HTTPS. I vaguely recall at some point having tried to snoop on local HTTPS requests with Wireshark and ending up frustrated.

Re: Firefox Configuration Guide for Privacy Freaks and Performance Buffs

#57

Post by QasimK »

severine wrote: post #50
QasimK wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is great and fairly simple to use. I personally use it to separate out Google into its own container, but it is also more practically useful to allow you to login to the same site with different accounts. It just works! But, the one problem that I've encountered is clicking links in gmail cause them to be opened within the Google container.

Right click > Open link in new container tab > No container

Yes, this is what I always do... after my muscle memory has already clicked the link normally!

Re: Firefox Configuration Guide for Privacy Freaks and Performance Buffs

#58

Post by KozmoNau7 »

suprfnk wrote: post #32
ams6110 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I've tried some of these extremely hardened configurations but ultimately there's too much breakage. My config now is basically: - uBlock Origin in default configuration - No 3rd party cookies (breaks some things, but not too many) - Clear history and cookies on exit Combined with an /etc/hosts file, and rather frequent browser restarts (generally daily).

> Clear history [..] on exit Why the history? That's not readable by anyone except you, right? > Clear [..] cookies on exit So do you have to keep logging in to websites daily? Isn't that very annoying?

I use Cookie AutoDelete, which autocleans cookies shortly after closing tabs. I whitelist sites where I want to stay logged in or save settings.

Re: Firefox Configuration Guide for Privacy Freaks and Performance Buffs

#60

Post by a_imho »

syshum wrote: post #54
rockdoe wrote: post #51

What I don't understand is why someone would go to the problems of essentially spending a lot of time breaking their Firefox installation instead of using Tor directly when they care about privacy. Most of the tweaks boil down to turning Firefox defaults into Tor defaults, but without the benefit of actual anonymity, unless you're going to go ahead and install and trust the VPN provider which you also need. The major…

>>Mozilla has been taking gradual steps in that direction I disagree with this.. I do not see Mozilla taking any steps toward privacy at all, infact in many ways they are taking steps AWAY from privacy with many of their recent actions and blunders. From their use of opt-out rather than opt-in for various privacy invading features, their pushing adware to all users via what was suppose to be a QA/Feedback feature, th…

Indeed, Moz://a revenue stream is at odds with privacy.
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