So You've Finally Switched to Firefox: a Brief Guide to a Some Very Useful Add-Ons.

This post is inspired by two things, the first being the announcement by Google that the long delayed Manifest V3 which will kill robust adblocking will finally roll out in June 2024, and the second, a post written by @sexhaver in response to a question as to what adblockers and extensions they use. It's a very good post with some A+ information, worth checking out.

I love Firefox, I love the degree of customization it offers me as a user. I love how it just works. I love the built in security features like DNS over HTTPS, and I love just how many excellent add-ons are available. It is a better browser than Chrome in every respect, and of the many Chromium based browsers out there, only Vivaldi comes close.

There are probably many people out there who are considering switching over to Firefox but are maybe putting it off because they've got Chrome set up the way they like it with the extensions they want, and doing all that again for Firefox seems like a chore. The Firefox Add-on directory is less expansive than the Chrome Web Store (which in recent years has become overrun with garbage extensions that range from useless to active malware), but there is still a lot of stuff to sift through. That's where this short guide comes in.

I'm presently running 33 add-ons for Firefox and have a number of others installed but disabled. I've used many others. These are my picks, the ones that I consider essential, useful, or in some cases just fun.

Adblocking/Privacy/Security:

uBlock Origin: The single best adblocker available. If you're a power user there are custom lists and scripts you can find to augment it.

Privacy Badger: Not strictly necessary if you're also running uBlock, but it does catch a few trackers uBlock doesn't and replaces potentially useful trackers like comment boxes with click-to-activate placeholders.

Decentraleyes: A supplementary tool meant to run alongside uBlock, prevents certain sites from breaking when tracker requests are denied by serving local bundled files as replacement.

NoScript: The nuclear option for blocking trackers, ads, and even individual elements. Operates from a "trust no one" standpoint, you will need to manually enable elements yourself. Not recommended for casual users, but a fantastic tool for the power user.

Webmail Ad Blocker: The first of many webmail related add-ons from Jason Saward I will be recommending. Removes all advertising from webmail services like Gmail or Yahoo Mail.

Popup Blocker (Strict): Strictly blocks ALL pop up/new tab/new window requests from all website by default unless you manually allow it.

SponsorBlock: Not a fan of listening to your favourite YouTuber read advertisements for shitty products like Raycons or BetterHelp? This skips them automatically.

AdNauseam: I don't use this one but some people prefer it. Rather than straight up blocking ads and trackers, it obfuscates data by injecting noise into the tracker surveillance infrastructure. It clicks EVERY ad, making your data profile incomprehensible.

User-Agent Switcher: Allows you to spoof websites attempting to gather information by altering your browser profile. Want to browse mobile sites on desktop? This allows you to do it.

Bitwarden: Bitwarden has been my choice of password manager since LastPass sold out and made their free tier useless. If you're not using a password manager, why not? All of my passwords look like this: $NHhaduC*q3VhuhD&scICLKjvM4rZK5^c7ID%q5HVJ3@gny I don't know a single one of them and I use a passphrase as a master password supplemented by two-factor-authentication. Everything is filled in automatically. It is the only way to live.

Proton Pass: An open source free password manager from the creators of Proton Mail. I've been considering moving over to it from Bitwarden myself.

Webmail/Google Drive:

Checker Plus for Gmail: Provides desktop notifications for Gmail accounts, supports managing multiple accounts, allows you to check your mail, read, mark as read or delete e-mails at a glance in a pop-up window. An absolutely fabulous add-on from Jason Saward.

Checker Plus for Google Drive: Does for your Google Drive what Checker Plus for Gmail does for your Gmail.

Checker Plus for Google Calendar: The same as the above two only this time for your Google Calendar.

Firefox Relay: An add-on that allows you to generate aliases that forward to your real e-mail address.

Accessibility:

Dark Reader: Gives every page on the internet a customizable Dark Mode for easier reading and eye protection.

Read Aloud: A text to speech add-on that reads pages with the press of a button.

Zoom Page WE: Provides the ability to zoom in on pages in multiple ways: text zoom, full page zoom, auto-fit etc.

Mobile Dyslexic: Not one I use, but I know people who swear by it. Replaces all fonts with a dyslexia friendly type face.

Utility:

ClearURLs: Automatically removes tracking data from URLs.

History Cleaner: Automatically deletes browser history older than a set number of days.

Feedbro RSS Feed Reader: A full standalone reader in your browser, take control of your feed and start using RSS feeds again.

Video Download Helper: A great tool for downloading video files from websites.

Snap Link Plus: Fan of Wikipedia binge holes? Snap Link allows to drag select multiple hyperlink and automatically open all of them in new tabs.

Copy PlainText: Copy any text without formatting.

EPUBReader: Read .epub files from within a browser window.

Tab Stash: A no mess, no fuss way to organize groups of tabs as bookmarks. I use it as a temporary bookmark tool, saving sessions or groups of tabs into "to read" folders.

Tampermonkey/Violentmonkey: Managers for installing and running custom user scripts. Find user scripts on OpenUserJS or Greasy Fork, there's an entire galaxy out there of ingenious and weird custom user scripts out there, go discover it.

Browsing & Searching:

Speed Dial 2: A new tab add-on that gives you easy access to your favourite sites.

Unpaywall: Whenever you come across a scholarly article behind a paywall, this add-on will search through all the free databases for an accessible and non-paywalled version of the text.

Web Archives: Come across a dead page? This add-on gives you a quick way to search for cached versions of the page on the Wayback Machine, Google Cache, Archive.is and others.

Bypass Paywalls: Automatically bypasses the paywalls of major websites like those for the New York Times, New Yorker, the Financial Times, Wired, etc.

Simple Translate: Simple one-click translation of web pages powered by Google Translate.

Search by Image: Reverse search any image via several different search engines: Google Image, TinEye, Yandex, Bing, etc.

Website Specific:

PocketTube: Do you subscribe to too many YouTube channels? Would you like a way to organize them? This is your answer.

Enhancer for Youtube: Provides a suite of options that make using YouTube more pleasant: volume boost, theatre mode, forced quality settings, playback speed and mouse wheel volume control.

Augmented Steam: Improves the experience of using Steam in a browser, see price histories of games, take notes on your wishlist, make wish listed games and new DLC for games you own appear more visible, etc.

Return YouTube Dislikes: Does exactly what it says on the package.

BlueBlocker: Hate seeing the absolute dimmest individuals on the planet have their replies catapulted to the top of the feed because they're desperate to suck off daddy Elon sloppy style? This is for you, it automatically blocks all Blue Checks on Twitter. I've used it to block a cumulative 34,000 Blue Checks.

Batchcamp: Allows for batch downloading on Bandcamp.

XKit Rewritten: If you're on Tumblr and you're not using whichever version of XKit is currently available, I honestly don't know what to say to you. This newest version isn't as fully featured as the old XKit of the golden age, but it's been rewritten from the ground up for speed and utility.

Social Fixer for Facebook: I once accidentally visited Facebook without this add-on enabled and was immediately greeted by the worst, mind annihilating content slop I had ever had the misfortune to come across. Videos titled "he wanted her to get lip fillers and she said no so he had bees sting her lips", and AI photos of broccoli Jesus with 6000 comments all saying "wow". Once I turned it on it was just stuff my dad had posted and updates from the Radio War Nerd group.

BetterTTV: Makes Twitch slightly more bearable.

Well I think that's everything. You don't have to install everything here, or even half of it, but there you go, it's a start.

Addendum!

I forgot to add, Firefox has skins and themes! And many of them are good! And of the many small creators making themes and skins for Firefox, my favourite is MaDonna an 85 year old great grandmother who's just making browser skins for fun. She's made thousands of them. I'm using one of her creations at this very moment, Dark Polygon.

Screaming crying throwing up (defrogitory) i hate asking references to be my references, its like hi ex-boss i haven’t thought of you since the last time i begged you to help me get a new job, can you help me with that again?

DEROGATORY****

also worth noting that "abusive" doesn't actually mean "irredeemable" either.

there's a lot of people that have done things in the past that were bad, because they weren't taught any better, or they were in an overall toxic situation where EVERYONE was shitty (like a cult), or they were just at an especially low point and hurt others for it.

you don't have to forgive them. you don't have to ever speak to them again. you can be angry with them until you die if you want.

but society cannot function if we don't allow them to move on. to change their behavior and fuck off somewhere else and build meaningful relationships without bothering you again. we need a path for people to change, or nothing ever will.

how does it feel to be the funniest person on earth

As someone that has grown up surrounded by beaches and done surf life saving, I know how the sea works. Lots of people dont. Every summer multiple tourists die here because they don’t respect the sea, if you’re going to the coast, here’s a thing I saw on Facebook.

wow.

reblogging for all of us that grew up in land locked states, then visit the ocean and are used to just plunging into a lake.

These are not unique to the sea btw. Rip tides are also a danger in other large bodies of water, like the Great Lakes

I had heard of rip tides, but I would never have guessed they were the calm-looking part. If I had been looking for a safe space to wade, I would have avoided all of the white parts (turbulent! terrifying!) and gone straight for the rip.

lake michigan has rip tides and strong currents and also the highest kill count of all of them because people think of superior and huron as The Scary Ones. lake michigan has beautiful beaches along very big cities, and eats tourists like popcorn. do not underestimate lakes, but particularly not the great lakes.

[Image ID: The Destiel confession meme edited so that Dean answers 'There's a petition to ban conversion therapy in the EU' to Cas' 'I love you'. /End ID]

If you are a citizen in the EU please sign this petition:

I went outside to the real world and there was nuance. it was fucking terrifying stay safe y'all

"Intersex"

[ID: A comic talking about issues intersex people face within the LGBTQ community. The people are presented as spherical pride flags.]

Panel 1:

Progress Pride: “You're intersex? I've never met an intersex person before. If it's okay to ask, what's your whole...anatomy situation?”

Intersex: “We just met and that's a very personal question. Being intersex is a very diverse medical condition that isn't always about body parts. Some people have a drastic hormone imbalance, for instance.” A thought bubble underneath this says “Here we go again...”

Panel 2:

Progress Pride wearing a pink bow on its head: “You're automatically nonbinary right?”

Intersex: “I'm not automatically anything. I was assigned a gender at birth and have characteristics of both sexes. I'm also not automatically LGBTQIA+. The “I” is for intersex, but that's not a gender identity or sexual orientation. It's a medical condition. Not all of us identify as LGBTQIA+”

Panel 3:

Progress Pride is in the background talking to an Exclusionist (purple to yellow to purple gradient flag): “Well, then what about intersex people? You can't judge a person's gender based on their sex.”

Intersex, in the foreground: A thought bubble above their head says “I'm not just a point in an argument.” They're holding a sign that says ““I” is for IGNORED.”

Panel 4:

Progress Pride wearing a blue bow on its neck: “So you must be bisexual or pansexual or some other multisexual orientation?”

Intersex: “I was assigned male, identify as male and I'm attracted to women, so I call myself heterosexual.”

Panel 5:

Progress Pride: “It's great that it's easier for you to get surgery. It's been a real pain for me trying to get anything set up.”

Intersex: “Those of us born with mixed parts have often had body altering surgeries without consent after birth. Many intersex conditions are significantly under researched if doctors have even heard of them. Nothing feels “easier.””

Panel 6:

Intersex 1: “Intersex people have very high poverty and suicide rates as well as mental health issues. Many of us endure so much. Even finding informed healthcare is hard.”

Intersex 2: “We are diverse. We're not just a point in an argument. We are not automatically trans. We choose how to define our sexual orientation. We don't want to be asked personal questions right after mentioning we're intersex. We need awareness, help and advocacy, but we're consistently ignored.”

[End ID]

RUSSIAN ROULETTE

Click one

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reminder that donating just a few $ to gofundme campaigns actually helps, you don't have to donate huge amounts if you don't have the funds, every little bit is useful. give $10, $5, even $1. it all adds up. don't scroll past because you think you can't help. help in your own capacity. donate a dollar. share and speak up.

here are a few gofundme links that still need a lot of help

If everyone who reblogs this post donates $5 (which I now know is the minimum you can donate on gofundme) to at least one of these, think about how fast we can help them all reach their respective goals

Since I made this post less than 24 hours ago we've collectively raised over $2000, and a lot of those donations were in the amount of $5-10. Keep sharing and keep donating. There is strength in numbers, and if those in power won't help we still have to do what we can. Small numbers add up. Thank you all for doing what you can. It does make a difference.

WAIT!

Before you hit send on that ask, reblog, or reply, remember to stop and PROOFREAD!

ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT YOURSELF FROM LOOKING LIKE A JACKASS ONLINE!

He did bro so bad homie made another video just to apologize.

Adam's apple? It's clearly Eve's.

I hate when I drink all of my drink and there's no drink left. What the fuckkkkkkk. #sickandtwisted