For alternatives.
- Firefox remains best in show in the category of “browsers that won’t do this bullshit.” It’s got a long, long history of trust, a sizable userbase, and a decent amount of privacy built in, with more extensions and customization options than you’ll ever need. However, note that it can sometimes perform slowly, especially with a lot of tabs open.
- Opera is a slightly lesser-known browser, and my personal main browser for day-to-day use. It has a built-in VPN (though this can be slow at times), adblocker, and anti-tracking tools, with more available via extensions. Opera’s userbase is slightly smaller, so overall less extensions are available than Firefox, and (in my experience) it generally needs a few settings to be tweaked on first startup to make it comfortable to use (notably, the keyboard shortcuts are different from chrome/firefox).
- DuckDuckGo is a privacy-focused search engine that also has (at least) a mobile browser (for Android devices). I’m not honestly sure if they have a desktop or Apple version, but the mobile browser provides many similar safety features to Opera. I find Opera more convenient for casual browsing, but if you’re very conscious of online security, DuckDuckGo might be the way to go.
- Microsoft Edge exists. Don’t use it.
Please do yourself a favor and stop using Chrome!
Ecosia isn’t Chrome based, right? that’s what ive been using, for the trees, and it says it doesn’t save your history but i wanted to check
I’m afraid so. And based on many other Chrome based browser scandals, I don’t trust it.
dammit. ill download firefox then :/ thanks for letting me know
edit: how do you actually download it
edit edit: wHY does it send me to GOOGLE, IMMEDIATELY upon downloading it????? like i have the app and it says “firefox browser” and it’s talking all about how secure it is etc but the little rainbow G icon is right next to the actual browser and theres a link right to Google on the firefox homepage how do i stop that
So from my understanding Firefox uses Google but it blocks all the trackers
that makes sense! ty!! i ended up changing the default browser to duckduckgo anyway (and deleted google and amazon off of the browser options anyway) but i appreciate it!!! (im afraid this all becomes null and void with me using only gmail as all of my email accs but there’s not much i can really do anything about that. hopefully firefox will block gmail from seeing my searches through the gmail account i used to sign in :///)
I’d recommend Protonmail, as a substitute for gmail. It’s a Swiss based end-to-end encrypted email service that is expanding to Proton-calander and Proton-drive with their paid version. Their ProtonVPN also has a free version with limited locations. They also have apps for both android and apple.
To boost Firefox, I’d add-on-
- Facebook Container- isolates your Facebook activity from the rest of your web activity in order to prevent Facebook from tracking you outside of the Facebook website via third party cookies.
- HTTPS Everywhere- Many sites on the web offer some limited support for encryption over HTTPS, but make it difficult to use. For instance, they may default to unencrypted HTTP, or fill encrypted pages with links that go back to the unencrypted site.
- Privacy Badger automatically learns to block invisible trackers. Instead of keeping lists of what to block, Privacy Badger automatically discovers trackers based on their behavior.
- Privacy Possum monkey wrenches common commercial tracking methods by reducing and falsifying the data gathered by tracking companies.
- uBlock Origin is not an “ad blocker”, it’s a wide-spectrum content blocker with CPU and memory efficiency as a primary feature.
- Firefox Multi-Account Containers lets you carve out a separate box for each of your online lives – no more opening a different browser just to check your work email! Here is a quick video showing you how it works. Under the hood, it separates website storage into tab-specific Containers. Cookies downloaded by one Container are not available to other Containers. With the Firefox Multi-Account Containers extension, you can…
- Sign in to two different accounts on the same site. For example, you could sign in to work email and home email in two different Container tabs.
- Keep different kinds of browsing far away from each other (for example, you might use one Container tab for managing your Checking Account and a different Container tab for searching for new songs by your favorite band)
- Avoid leaving social-network footprints all over the web (for example, you could use a Container tab for signing in to a social network, and use a different tab for visiting online news sites, keeping your social identity separate from tracking scripts on news sites)
- Enhancer for YouTube™- Built to get the most out of YouTube, this extension comes packed with all sorts of features that allow you, among other things, to manage ads as you wish, control the playback speed and the volume level with the mouse wheel, automate repetitive tasks such as selecting the appropriate playback quality, configure dozens of keyboard shortcuts to control YouTube like a pro, and much more.
- Decentraleyes- Protects you against tracking through “free”, centralized, content delivery.
- Protects privacy by evading large delivery networks that claim to offer free services.
- Complements regular blockers such as uBlock Origin (recommended), Adblock Plus, et al.
- Works directly out of the box; absolutely no prior configuration required.
- Bitwarden- A secure and free password manager for all of your devices. Bitwarden is the easiest and safest way to store all of your logins and passwords while conveniently keeping them synced between all of your devices.
Several of these also have companion versions in Firefox mobile.
If you are interested in other trustworthy add-ons, this icon shows that the add-on is an editorially curated extension that meet the highest standards of security, functionality, and user experience. Firefox staff, along with community participation, selects each extension and manually reviews them for security and policy compliance before they receive Recommended status.
Good luck! @ or message me if you need anything else.
Edit: I’d make a firefox account so you can log in and sync tabs/bookmarks across devices.
holy shit this is insane thank you so much!!!
Long post but very useful addons. Press j to skip