Recommended Browser Extensions

Internet safety and privacy is important now more than ever. Companies and governments want to track everything that we do, from the links we click and share to the ads that we always see. As such, it seems as if the internet knows more about us, then we do about ourselves. This doesn't even consider the rise in generative AI taking over the internet, making it difficult to tell between fiction from reality. All of this can ruin our web experience and, if on the internet long enough, effect our mental, social and emotional health.

To combat this, it is now more important than ever to learn technological skills that can make our web experience safer. One of the easiest ways to do this is with the use of extension.

What is an Extension?

"An extension adds features and functions to a browser. It's created using familiar web-based technologies — HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It can take advantage of the same web APIs as JavaScript on a web page, but an extension also has access to its own set of JavaScript APIs. This means that you can do a lot more in an extension than you can with code in a web page." - FireFox Mozilla Developers

Basically, an extention gives you access to different features, tools or scripts that either run in the background or you use by clicling on it. The tech community have used extensions to make so many tools to make our lives easier. Some remove paywalls from websites, others automatically make all websites their dark layouts, some give fun aesthetic changes.

This page will give you a list of extensions you can download for desktop and/or Android so you can make your internet journey more safe, private and fun!

First Step: Download FireFox on your Devices

There are multiple reasons why I recommend you exclusively use FireFox, or at the least abandon Google Chrome, Safari and Microsoft Edge.

  • Despite multiple of these extensions also being available in these other browsers; browsers like Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge are owned by the same companies that are always stealing and storing our private. Using these browser inherently puts your information at risk. In contrast, FireFox is an open-sourced web browser supported by the community, greatly diminishing your safety risk.

  • FireFox in general has more browser when it comes to safety and privacy because the community is much more focused on these issues compared to other web browser communities.

  • FireFox has better base privacy settings that you can edit to keep your information safe.

    • Overall, if you want to follow my recommendations, please use FireFox and download all of these extensions!

    Tracker Blockers

    These extensions block trackers so companies can't see what you are looking at, making it harder to give you accurate ads or sell your information.

    NAME DESCRIPTION LINK ANDROID? ANDROID ALTERNATIVE ANDROID ALTERNATIVE LINK
    uBlock Origin Block Trackers Best adblocker in town, blocks almost everything. Here YES
    Privacy Badger Blocks invisible trackers to keep you safe. Here YES
    Decentraleyes It prevents a lot of requests from reaching networks like Google Hosted Libraries, and serves local files to keep sites from breaking. Complements regular content blockers. Here YES
    Don't track me Google Removes the annoying link-conversion at Google Search. Here YES
    Privacy Possum Reducing and falsifying the data gathered by tracking companies. Here YES
    TrackMeNot By issuing randomized queries to common search-engines, TrackMeNot obfuscates your search profile and registers your discontent with surreptitious tracking. Here YES
    WhatCampaign This privacy add-on protects your identity by changing tracking parameters, published as part of Projekt ONI. Here NO NO NO
    ClearURLs Removes tracking elements from URLs. Here YES
    Clean Youtube Links Replaces the Youtube redirect tracking link with the actual link. Here
    Remove Instagram Tracker Parameters Removes Instagram tracking query parameter appended to URLs shared by other people. Here YES
    Remove Spotify Tracker Parameters Removes Spotify tracking query parameter appended to URLs shared by other people. Here YES
    Remove Twitter Tracker Parameters Removes Twitter tracking query parameters appended to URLs shared by other people. Here YES
    Facebook Container Prevent Facebook from tracking you around the web. Here NO NO NO
    Gumroad Remove Tracking Automatically removes tracking parameters from page urls and links on Gumroad search and storefronts. Here NO NO NO

    Website Blockers

    Gives you the ability to block specific websites from your browser so you are less likely to enter a website that might contain generative AI stuff or dangerous communities.

    NAME DESCRIPTION LINK ANDROID? ANDROID ALTERNATIVE ANDROID ALTERNATIVE LINK
    uBlacklist Blocks sites you specify from appearing in Google search results. Here YES
    uBlock Origin and uBlacklist Block AI Websites Use uBlock Origin and/or uBlacklist to block AI websites Here YES
    Distract Me Not Block websites that distract you. Here YES
    udm14 Adds a Google search engine that includes the udm=14 parameter to return to a more stripped down view for search results, omitting AI. Here NO &udm=14 Here

    Safety

    Makes sure your internet journey and IP address are as safe as possible.

    NAME DESCRIPTION LINK ANDROID? ANDROID ALTERNATIVE ANDROID ALTERNATIVE LINK
    SetupVPN Lifetime Free VPN SetupVPN changes your IP address and location with just single click! Here NO SetupVPN Lifetime Free VPN App Here
    WebRTC Leak Shield Disable WebRTC and prevent IP leak. Here YES
    NoScript Security Suite It allows JavaScript, Flash, and other executable content to run only from trusted domains of your choice (e.g. your banking site), thus mitigating remotely exploitable vulnerabilities, such as Spectre and Meltdown. Here YES

    Remove PayWalls

    Have free access to different websites like newspapers, articles, etc.

    NAME DESCRIPTION LINK ANDROID? ANDROID ALTERNATIVE ANDROID ALTERNATIVE LINK
    Remove Paywall Remove paywalls from articles legally by searching public internet archives. Here YES
    RemovePaywalls.com Access full articles without a paywall by finding them in archive sites. Here YES
    CastleBlock Remove paywall from websites. Here YES
    Sci-Hub X Now! Free access to academic papers with just a single click via sci-hub! Here YES

    RSS Feeds

    Get up to date on your favorite websites!

    NAME DESCRIPTION LINK ANDROID? ANDROID ALTERNATIVE ANDROID ALTERNATIVE LINK
    Feedbro Advanced Feed Reader - Read news articles, blogs or any RSS/Atom/RDF source. Here NO Awesome RSS Here
    Tapas RSS Button A webextension that adds an RSS feed button on https://tapas.io webcomic pages. Here NO NO NO

    General Web

    Cool stuff to add for general web usage.

    NAME DESCRIPTION LINK ANDROID? ANDROID ALTERNATIVE ANDROID ALTERNATIVE LINK
    Bitwarden Password Manager Password and passkey manager. Here YES (App)
    Tampermonkey Userscript manager to add custom scripts for more tech savvy people. Here YES
    Don't "Accept" image/webp This extension removes image/webp and/or image/avif from the list of formats Firefox tells sites that it accepts. Here NO Disable WebP Images Here
    Behind The Overlay Close any overlay popup. Here YES
    Search by Image A powerful reverse image search tool, with support for various search engines, such as Google, Bing, Yandex, Baidu and TinEye. Here YES
    Terms of Service; Didn’t Read Get informed instantly about websites' terms & privacy policies, with ratings and summaries from the www.tosdr.org initiative. Here YES
    TWP - Translate Web Pages Translate your page in real time using Google, Bing or Yandex. Here YES
    Shinigami Eyes Highlights transphobic/anti-LGBT and trans-friendly subreddits/facebook pages/groups with different colors. Here YES
    Wayback Machine Save websites, view missing 404 Not Found pages, or read archived books & papers. Here NO Web Archives Here
    Allow Right-Click Re-enable the possibility to use the context menu on sites that overrides it. Here YES
    Don't Fuck With Paste Stops websites from blocking copy and paste for password fields and other input fields. Here YES
    WhatFont Tells you what kind of font is used. Here YES
    Snap Links Plus Select a number of links with a rectangle and open them in new tabs. Here NO
    Firefox Multi-Account Containers Keep parts of your online life separated into color-coded tabs. Cookies are separated by container, allowing you to use the web with multiple accounts and integrate Mozilla VPN for an extra layer of privacy. Here NO

    Shopping

    Helps make shopping a little bit easier.

    NAME DESCRIPTION LINK ANDROID? ANDROID ALTERNATIVE ANDROID ALTERNATIVE LINK
    The Camelizer - Price Tracker Add price history charts and price watch features to Firefox when viewing product pages on Amazon. Here NO Amazon Price Check (Camel) Here
    Fakespot Fake Amazon Reviews and eBay Sellers Protect yourself from bad sellers and fake reviews on Amazon and more! Here NO NO NO

    Social Media

    Makes your social media experience so much better. (Note: They don't work on the app versions of the social media, just the browser versions.)

    NAME DESCRIPTION LINK ANDROID? ANDROID ALTERNATIVE ANDROID ALTERNATIVE LINK
    Channel Blocker Block separate videos, users or whole channels with only one click! Here NO BlockTube Here
    YouTube Dislike Counter Returns ability to see dislike statistics on YouTube. Here YES
    SponsorBlock - Skip Sponsorships on YouTube Easily skip YouTube video sponsors. Here YES
    Unhook: Remove YouTube Recommended Videos Comments Hide YouTube related videos, comments, video suggestions wall, homepage recommendations, trending tab, and other distractions. Here YES
    Hide Youtube-Shorts Hides YouTube-shorts videos from home page, subscriptions, search results. Here YES
    YouTube Search Fixer Remove suggestions like "For you", "People also search for", "Searches related to", "Learn while you're at home", "Related to your search", "People also watched", "Other people are watching", "Recommended to you" and "Latest YouTube posts" from your feed. Here NO NO NO
    Control Panel for Twitter Twitter UI overhaul with the most prominent featutres including removing retweets, keep on Following tab, remove "Trends for you"/"Who to Follow"/Other things. Here YES
    Sky Follower Bridge Instantly find and follow the same users from your Twitter follower on Bluesky. Here NO NO NO
    TTV LOL PRO TTV LOL PRO removes most livestream ads from Twitch. Here YES
    Twitch Channel Points Autoclicker Automatically claims 'Channel Points' on Twitch for the channel you are watching. Here YES
    Twitch Chat Pronouns Add Pronouns to Twitch Chat. Here NO NO NO
    Unscroll Instagram Remove infinite scrolling, reels and recommended posts for web Instagram. Here YES

    Gaming

    Extensions to make your Steam search a little better.

    NAME DESCRIPTION LINK ANDROID? ANDROID ALTERNATIVE ANDROID ALTERNATIVE LINK
    SteamDB Adds SteamDB links and new features on the Steam store and community. View lowest game prices and stats. Here YES
    Steam URL Opener Allows you to open URLs inside Steam Client to save the hassle of logging in normal browser (with a single click on a button). Here NO NO NO
    HLTB Extension for Backloggd This extension shows the HLTB time in every Backloggdgame. Here NO NO NO

    Fandom

    Extensions to help with fandom, especially fanfiction.

    NAME DESCRIPTION LINK ANDROID? ANDROID ALTERNATIVE ANDROID ALTERNATIVE LINK
    ao3rdr A bookmark helper and tag blacklister for Archive of Our Own. Here YES
    Indie Wiki Buddy When visiting a Fandom wiki, Indie Wiki Buddy redirects or alerts you of independent alternatives. Here YES