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.
