Browsers

Browsers are a rather difficult subject as each user has their own preference. This makes it difficult to provide recommendations that will work across all browsers. Nonetheless, here I go.

First off, if your using Microsoft's Internet Explorer - get off my site now and stop reading any of this. You're wasting your time. If you're using Edge, well, that's better, but again, please go away. You're using a shitty browser and all bets are off as far as anonymity is concerned.

Awww, I picked on Microsoft, but what about Apple's Safari. Like Edge, it's a better choice, but I'm not touching it. Neither should you.

So what should you use. I'd say there are only three browsers you should consider: Chrome, Firefox and Tor Browser. Actually, there is one more - Brave. Brave is a pretty damn good browser. If you want a browser that you don't really have to configure for security, you might consider it or Tor Browser. But I'm not going to be discussing them here.

Everything else really relates to Firefox, cause that's my primary browser. I only use Tor Browser for going on the "dark" onion-y web. And although Chrome is installed on my computers, I rarely use it. But Chrome has many of the same add-ons that are discussed below so don't abandon me yet. I will say, however, that my issue with Chrome is that Google makes it. How do I know what information they are extracting? I don't! And even if they aren't doing anything like that now, who says they won't tomorrow? Also, since you are automatically logged into the Google browser by default once you've used any Google service, it seems that you are broadcasting to the world (at least to Google) hey here I am! Thereby defeating any attempt at anonymity. One final note, actually the real reason I left Chrome was because it was such a resource hog.

Ok, I know people will say, yeah, but you could say the many of the same things about Firefox. And you may be right. But I feel the Mozilla Foundation has proven itself to be less evil than Google.

Add-ons

Having tried out many security-related add-ons I have settled on the following:

  • uBlock Origin
  • Privacy Badger
  • First Party Isolation
  • Smart Referer
  • Multi-Account Containers
  • Facebook Container
  • HTTPS Everywhere
  • Don't track me Google
  • Google search link fix
  • Cookie Autodelete

You can search for each of these in the add-ons section for Firefox (and Chrome!). At a minimum I would definitely install uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger.

Search Engine

Switch your search engine to either DuckDuckGo or maybe StartPage. StartPage is good, but it's Google without Google getting credit.