Table of Contents
Of all the applications I use most on my computer, I’m probably most reliant on my web browser, having it open pretty much the entire time. In today’s post, I’ll be going into a brief history of my use of web browsers, and then explore my current browser setup with what add-ons I use and why.
Beginnings
When I first began using the internet, I started on Internet Explorer and was inundated with the awful noisy pop-ups and flashy banner adverts of the 1990s, as well as toolbars that seemed to install out of nowhere. In 2005, a friend, more tech savvy than I was, then recommended I try out a new browser: Firefox. I was initially reluctant as I’d only ever spent time on Internet Explorer, but after migrating everything over, it became my home for nearly two decade of how I browsed the internet. Yes, even as Google Chrome became significantly more popular, I had no desire to leave my trusty Firefox, only using Google Chrome when absolutely necessary for web development testing and the occasional broken website.
Why Change?
A couple of years ago, I began hearing people displeased with the data owner Mozilla was collecting and how difficult it was to configure the browser to be more private. I then decided to explore other options, and saw LibreWolf highly recommended as a fork of Firefox with these security hardening tweaks already preconfigured into it.
I’ve been using it for a while now, but then stumbled across a post on Mastodon which recommended a different Firefox alternative over LibreWolf, the oddly named: Floorp.
Intrigued of this Japanese based fork, I installed it and migrated my data over again, and played around with the new features. In particular, I like how there is a button to reopen a closed tab, how there is a little sidebar which can create a pane running alongside the existing webpage open, how customisable it is with appearance, and Share Mode which hides all identifying information (bookmarks, add-ons, toolbars…) in the web browser - great for taking screenshots or sharing your screen.
Add-Ons
Assorted
Being very particular about how my web browsing experience goes, my most unusual choice here is probably LiveMarks, as I never got over Firefox removing Live Bookmarks, and used them as a way to quickly read news headlines.
Having been a BETA tester for DuckDuckGo’s Email Protection service, I still use it to create temporary email addresses when needed, and so use DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials less for privacy reasons, and more to easily insert these disposable email addresses in.
I have TamperMonkey installed to run a couple of scripts for Neopets: NeoSearchHelper and Daily Quest Helper, and linkding extension to save bookmarks to be self-hosted linkding installation.
Appearance
In my hopes and aim to customise everything I can get my hands on into the Rosé Pine colour palette, I have Firefox Color installed to theme the browser itself, and then use Stylus to change a website’s appearance by modifying the CSS.
YouTube
I have SponsorBlock installed to skip sponsor sections within YouTube videos, and DeArrow to present alternative titles and thumbnails of videos, in hopes of trying to reduce the amount of clickbait I see on YouTube. I also had to install YouTube Enhancer recently as I seemed to have been thrown into some sort of [A/B testing](A/B testing) where I could not stop videos autoplaying when logged into my account - but could when logged out. A helpful user on Mastodon recommended me this add-on as a means to forcibly turn off autoplay.
Security
Lastly, I have a few security add-ons, with much of the security now being handled by my AdGuard Home DNS setup. As such, I do not have an advertising blocker installed, though I used to use AdBlock Origin. I use LibRedirect to not only create auto redirects to my self-hosted frontends of Whoogle and libreddit, but to also view alternatives hosted elsewhere, such as Medium alternative Scribe.
I still use NoScript, though am hopeful my DNS filtering is preventing the worst offenders of trackers, but find it helpful for misbehaving websites which run better without all their scripts running.
Tags: WeblogPoMo2024 Setup Applications