3 ways to improve the privacy of the Firefox browser

[Carder]

Tired of ubiquitous internet tracking? The Firefox browser has many privacy options that you can customize to suit your needs.

Although Google Chrome remains one of the most popular browsers, this does not mean that it is the safest and has more useful features than other Internet programs.

Unlike Chrome, Firefox combines fast page loading speed, web browsing security, and stability. It is one of the most feature rich browsers in the world, which is why it is so popular. Firefox gives you the ability to easily change your privacy settings, either through built-in options or using third-party extensions.

In this article, we will learn how to make Firefox a truly private browser using only the settings of the program itself.

Why Firefox?​

Firefox's appeal lies in its open source code. The browser development process is completely transparent. It is attended by thousands of developers at the same time, using various platforms. This interest and popularity helps the browser receive regular updates and improve its performance.

A few important facts about Firefox:

• The browser is owned by the non-profit company Mozilla.
• It contains a huge number of possible extensions that can be used to make Firefox work better.
• Firefox is open source.
• Mozilla does not do business with corporations that sell user data.

Firefox has built-in security and privacy options. With them, a person can browse the web while remaining incognito. In addition, there are several quick privacy settings that can be changed in a couple of clicks.

It's worth noting that while Mozilla does not sell its user data, Google is the main source of funding for the company. According to the agreement between the companies, Google will remain the default search engine for Firefox, for which Mozilla receives $ 400-450 million each year.

Boost Firefox privacy by changing settings​

In life, you often have to compromise. If you are willing to give up some degree of convenience for the sake of your privacy and security, you will have to disable certain features of the program.

To enhance Firefox privacy, we first need to access the settings menu by clicking on the three horizontal lines in the upper right corner of the browser.

From the Home menu, uncheck the "Pages Saved in Pocket" item. This will disable saving web content across all your devices connected to your Firefox account.

In the Privacy & Security menu, you will see three levels of protection: Standard, Strong, and Personal. Select the "strong" protection option to prevent third-party websites from tracking your activities.

If a "strong" level of protection is blocking access to a site you want to visit, simply click on the shield icon next to the site address and turn off Enhanced Tracking Protection .

While in the "Privacy & Security" menu, scroll down to the "History" section. Select the "Will use your history storage settings" option from the drop-down menu.

Then check the box next to Always work in private browsing mode. This will require a browser restart. From now on, Firefox will no longer save the history of the pages you visited and downloads, as well as data for autocomplete lines. Thus, you will be able to delete all personal information that could be tracked and analyzed by other companies such as Amazon, Facebook, Google.

It's also worth deleting your browsing history for the entire time (if you haven't already).

Scroll further down the page to the Permissions section. Customize each item by checking the box next to " Block new requests " and clicking on the " Save changes " button .

This is followed by the Firefox Data Collection and Use section: uncheck all boxes here to ensure that communication between your browser and Mozilla is kept to a minimum. This will prevent the browser from sending any telemetry data to Mozilla.

Now comes the fun part. In the "Protection" section there is an item "Block dangerous and deceiving content". Resist the temptation to leave a checkbox next to this option, as it is Google who decides which content to block. It is better to disable this function.

Go to the "Search" menu. For your convenience, it's best to add the search bar to the toolbar and separate it from the address bar.

Make DuckDuckGo your default search engine instead of Google, and uncheck the Show search suggestions option. This will further reduce the amount of data the browser knows about you.

Besides DuckDuckGo, you can also use SearX's confidential search engine.

Finally, we go to the "Synchronization" menu. It is worth turning off data synchronization between devices and deleting your personal Firefox account (after copying all the necessary information). This will greatly increase your privacy level.

Using the "about: config" command in Firefox​

We've improved Firefox's privacy with options that are visible in its settings. However, Firefox also has more advanced security and privacy options under the hood . Copy and paste (or just type) "about: config" into the address bar to access them.

Uncheck the box next to "Warn me when I try to access these settings" and click on the "Accept risk and continue" button . First we are interested in the parameters related to telemetry, so enter "telemetry" in the search bar. Double click on the parameters below and change their values to "false":

• browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.telemetry
• browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.telemetry
• browser.ping-center.telemetry
• toolkit.telemetry.archive.enabled
• toolkit.telemetry.bhrPing.enabled
• toolkit.telemetry.enabled
• toolkit.telemetry.firstShutdownPing.enabled
• toolkit.telemetry.hybridContent.enabled
• toolkit.telemetry.newProfilePing.enabled
• toolkit.telemetry.reportingpolicy.firstRun
• toolkit.telemetry.shutdownPingSender.enabled
• toolkit.telemetry.unified
• toolkit.telemetry.updatePing.enabled

Now click on "toolkit.telemetry.server " and delete its contents. This will permanently prevent any telemetry data from being transmitted between your browser and Mozilla.

Now search for "experiments". These parameters are related to the exploration and testing of Mozilla functions. Using them, the browser also collects data about your actions. Accordingly, double click on the options below to change their value to "false":

• experiments.activeExperiment
• experiments.enabled
• experiments.supported
• network.allow-experiments

You also need to disable network prefetching by typing "prefetch" into the search bar. This is an important point because prefetching is responsible for prefetching cookies from sites. This can speed up the loading of web pages, but it will also attract unwanted attention from trackers. The parameter values must be as follows:

• network.dns.disablePrefetch = true
• network.dns.disablePrefetchFromHTTPS = true
• network.predictor.enabled = false
• network.predictor.enable-prefetch = false
• network.prefetch-next = false

Importing an already secure Firefox profile​

There are other ways to improve your privacy if you want to be as safe as possible on the Internet. However, it would be more practical to change all of these settings at once, rather than each one individually. One way to do this is to change your Firefox profile to one that is already as secure as possible.

Download, unzip and move the files you want to your Firefox profile folder. Depending on the operating system, you should move them to a specific location:

After you have unzipped the downloaded profile, you need to set the default profile for your Firefox browser. To do this, enter "about: profiles" in the address bar and select "Create a new profile".

The browser will prompt you to select the folder where your new Firefox profile is stored. It will be named “user. js-master".

Now you can make it your default profile and use maximum security measures without manually changing dozens of settings.

Privacy vs Comfort​

The above methods for private browsing can significantly reduce the comfort of using the browser. Therefore, we recommend that you select only those settings that will not harm your performance. Take care not only of the privacy of your data, but also of yourself.

 

[Carding 4 Carders]

Now you can be tracked even with JavaScript disabled​

Previously, websites used JS scripts to track users ' online activities, but according to the study (https://orenlab.sise.bgu.ac.il/p/PP0) groups of specialists, now a bunch of HTML + CSS is enough. An exceptional danger is that even browsers with a focus on privacy - Tor, Chrome Zero, DeterFox, etc. - are affected by this vulnerability.

This technique is called "CSS Prime + Probe", and is a method of indirect tracking, which is why it has a relatively low accuracy. However, the researchers say that even the achieved accuracy is enough to identify and track users, determining, for example, which sites they visited.

It is worth noting that it is impossible to completely protect yourself from such attacks. The main role in preventing attacks through third-party channels in modern browsers lies with site developers. However, using cache differentiation and isolation tools, such as Firefox's Multi-Account Containers or sessionbox in Chrome, can help you do this.

Containers in Firefox guard your privacy

The issue of privacy is one of the most acute in the 21st century. Modern methods of tracking users on the web allow advertising services to track users ' movements between websites and, based on the collected data, display Intrusive ads.

Firefox developers have an extension https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fi...la.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=search, which allows you to open sites in isolated container environments . You can create containers for various purposes - whether it's for school, work, or personal interests. Sites opened in containers have their own storage facilities for cookies, cache, and other data, which will make it harder for advertising networks and Analytics services to track you.

In addition, containers allow you to open multiple copies of the same site with different accounts. For example, you can open multiple social network accounts or multiple mailboxes at the same time. You can also specify a container that will always open certain sites. For example, the "Social networks" container that will open Facebook and Vkontakte.

How to use different service accounts in the same browser window

Sometimes you need to work with multiple accounts on the same social network. For example, such a task is faced by small businesses that use social networks to promote services.

Previously, in such cases, they came up with tricks: they used the "Incognito" mode in browsers, used several browsers, and sometimes even installed virtual machines. Today, this is corrected by a browser extension, such as SessionBox (https://sessionbox.io/discover).

You can use this extension to create virtual containers for tabs that contain all the data that was used to log in to the service. This allows you to create multiple sessions and use them to work with the same service under different accounts. You can also create temporary sessions that will be deleted when you close the browser.

The app is shareware and does not require registration to use. However, after registration, you can sync a single session between multiple devices.