So as the title mentions, I’m wondering how much is too much?
I am currently using Brave with the setting to:
- Aggressively block trackers & ads
- Only connect with HTTPS
- Block fingerprinting
- Block cross-site cookies
In addition to that, I have installed the following extensions:
- uBlock Origin
- Ghostery
- Decentraleyes
- DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials
So my question is: Is this overkill? If so, what should/could be removed that may be redundant? I want as much coverage as possible, but not have things bloated.
You just need uBlock. The other add-ons are redundant.
Yes for the browser i agree, sadly apps have trackers and ads too. A dns can be useful if it’s system wide for all that stuff. Nextdns, adguard, rethinkdns or decloudus comes to mind
Yup. Overkill. But, thankfully extension removal is just a click away. More users should ask questions like this.
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You don’t need any of those.
The functions and lists of uBlock are built into Brave. Most of the rest are redundant. You’re just having the opposite effect that you’re trying to achieve. These extensions are just used to fingerprint you.
So you don’t use any extensions then?
Depends on which browser. On Brave the only ones I use are Proton Pass and ViolentMonkey. You can search/install/run scripts in ViolentMonkey to do the same thing as any other extension.
You can have what Brave does except block ads/trackers, which uBO can cover anyway, but on Firefox or Librewolf instead. For extensions, ditch Ghostery.
Noted! I have been looking into Librewolf… Why is Ghostery not useful?
Ghostery used to sell (or just send back) user data to advertisers. While it was opt-in, that isn’t really a good look for a privacy tool. I stopped using it when that news broke out long ago, but I think now they are also showing ads of their own(?). Either way, uBO does almost everything now. I have Decentraleyes too, along with ClearURLs, and Privacy Badger (which supposedly is redundant to uBO now too).
less is more in this case, the best approach is:
UBlock Origin, NextDNS to filter the queries and Block Cookies cross sites
I mean ublock origin is really all you need imo so I guess one
One is the right number. Two is too many.
I disagree. Test your set up here :
https://d3ward.github.io/toolz/adblock.html
I use ublock and ad guard (app and DNS) together to get to 100%.
Very interesting site.
On Vivaldi I get:
-
No blocking in settings: 39% (how?)
-
only Ghostery active: 86%
-
only uBlock active: 100% (ghostery still reports trackers)
-
Vivaldi Max blocking, no add-ons: 53%
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Vivaldi max blocking + Ghostery: 93%
-
All max blocing and on: 100% (same as just uBlock)
uBlock reports 144 blocked
Ghostery reports 53 blocked
Even with only uBlock I get a report of 144 blocked ads (96%) with 150 tests and the site showing 100% score Interesting. It’s a nice test site, but I think I can conclude in my setup that uBlock is the best blocker, but a combination of Vivaldi’s settings and uBlock is a minimum. No clue if ghostery ads anything, but the site won’t test everything as it’s impossible to do that in the ad war we’re in.
Very interesting. Thanks for taking the time to run these tests and share your results!
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I get 100% using only ublock in firefox, without configuring either. Note that stacking filters not only reduces performance, but also increases your fingerprint.
speaking of finger printing I use these
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/canvasblocker/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/javascript-restrictor/
Oh, I used canvasblocker for a lot of years, it’s great. But I disabled it because from arkenfox it is not recommended together with privacy.resistfingerprinting.
how does your solution fare vs the coveryourtracks link?
I guess reasonably well? It’s hard to assess, but anyway I also use user.js from arkenfox which includes many other changes; they also have this service to detect fingerprints that I suspect you are interested in, it has the particularity to detect tampering.
Hmm, interesting tool! With just Brave blocking I get 96%, but turning on uBO, I get 100%.
Ditch ghostery and replace with privacy badger.
Is PrivacyBadger not made redundant by uBlock or any of the other extensions?
I hope to find this out, too. I’m using UBO and Privacy Badger on Firefox.
PrivacyBadger functionality is now built into uBO.
Source?
Where exactly does it say that??
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Websites can also dingier print you by your browser settings and extensions.
So, having a lot of extensions can defeat the purpose of privacy.
I try to keep default settings and a minimal number of extensions.
It depends on what browser and what extensions. Previously addon could be fingerprinted by detecting what web resourves they used (i think just chromium). On firefox extensions can get detected by sensing certain telltale changes they provide. eg. Inserting js in dom or blocking of ad/tracking domains. Even if the extension itself isnt identified, unique settings and multiple content blockers will make kinds of fingerprinting possible.
Honastpy at this point you should turn them all ofi and set up a pi hole
pihole by itself does not remove all the ads and trackers, just ones that come from different hostnames than the site being accessed–which can be blocked by dns.
a browser-based blocker is essential.
Pi hole is great for blocking ads from IoT devices like TVs or streaming boxes. But pi hope can’t block things like YouTube ads.
The only privacy add-on you need is uBlock Origin with script blocking and advanced mode enabled, installed on Firefox. Better yet, LibreWolf, although a few websites will be broken by LibreWolf. There are no other privacy add-ons that are necessary beyond uBlock Origin.
I mean, you can install them if you want, but they won’t do anything.
Use Firefox with ubo. Stop using chromium browsers.
After reading through this whole thread, that’s exactly what I’m doing.
Firefox isn’t as secure as Chromium browsers due to its internal sandboxing and site isolation being substantially weaker (especially on Linux). If you are on a Linux machine, I recommend you use Brave with no ad blocking extensions because first, it comes with an ad blocker by default. Also, the more extensions you have, your attack surface increases.
If you are on Windows, you should be using Microsoft Edge paired with UBO Lite as it offers the highest security and UBO Lite doesn’t have access to the site data. If you are concerned about the telemetry of using Edge, you can turn it off and if you’re still paranoid, you will have to switch to Linux at this point.
Please never do this! Read this thread from the developer of uBlock Origin. Using multiple content blockers together like this can and will cause issues, as well as will increase fingerprinting, etc, and there’s no gain or benefit at all from doing so.
I would disable Brave’s built-in ad/tracker blocking (leave the rest of the Shields’ functionality enabled), and would solely use uBlock Origin, and remove the other extensions. (You could even just stick to Brave’s built in ad/tracker blocking if you want to, but I just prefer uBlock Origin for its advanced features and compatibility)
As far as Decentraleyes goes, its essentially abandoned. You can use LocalCDN instead if you wish to do so, though its privacy benefits are debated. I mainly use it since I use uBlock Origin in Hard mode (which it complements uBo very nicely in both Medium or Hard Mode), and for the performance boost it gives, but its up to you. Ghostery and DDG Essentials should definitely be removed. (While DDG Essentials isn’t only content blocking, its other features are also just completely redundant and unnecessary with Brave)
DDG extension lets you enable and manage their private email forwarding service. It can also be done through their mobile browser but less convenient.
I do not need to try smth which I already did and others too. I’m also not talking about ky experiences or opinions, what I said are facts.
My rule for this is if tor uses it its pretty dam good aka No script + Ublock Orgin
tor using ublock origin would be new to me. do you mean they now ship it by default or do you mean that you can install it like a regular firefox extension?
Oh come to think of it you might be right I don’t use tor a lot lol