A Focused Approach to Safer Web Browsing
What I use and how I configure my browser to make it through the workday
I don’t like the big tech companies acquiring large amounts of data from my web browsing behavior. Mainly because they’re not paying me for it. I get feisty when any online company gathers data about me in attempts to form an online profile about my interests, my purchases, my political leanings, and even my personality. That form of telemetry is prevalent among many online businesses, not just the big tech goliaths. So I have taken deliberate action to protect my web browsing from as many online companies as possible. Here’s a look into my daily web browser setup.
I use a heavily-customized Mozilla Firefox as my primary web browser of choice. If I need a secondary web browser for my research or testing needs, I choose to use Brave browser, also heavily-customized.
Hot-Rodding Firefox
First step I take with Firefox is to install important add-ons to help make my browsing more secure and less distracted:
uBlock Origin - Free and open-source ad content blocker. Ubiquitous in my online life. Eliminates most distractions on webpages. All the kids use it, so why shouldn’t I?
Bitwarden Password Manager - I smile every time a 40+ character password, impossible for me to memorize, is auto-filled into the password field of a website where I have an account.
HTTPS Everywhere - Automatically uses HTTPS (the secure version of a webpage) on every site I visit. More and more websites are making HTTPS by default, so this one may be unnecessary in the future.
Firefox Multi-Account Containers - This allows me to compartmentalize my browsing. My LinkedIn account is opened in its own LinkedIn container, and I never visit another website in that container, so the LinkedIn people cannot grab any of my other browsing activity. I open Amazon in its own container, and it doesn’t see my LinkedIn browsing activity, only my Amazon activity. When it comes to my web browsing activity, you gotta keep ‘em separated.
SimpleLogin - If I am creating a new account on a website, I can click this add-on once to create a randomized, and valid, email account instead of my personal email. This randomized email forwards any messages from this new website to my personal email. Such a clean workflow. (Requires an account with SImpleLogin and connecting your personal email account to it beforehand.)
Tranquility Reader - Sometimes Firefox’s reader view looks clunky. This add-on lets me customize the view with my favorite font and formats the webpage content nicely when printing as a PDF.
Once I discovered a fabulous alternate way to view Youtube videos without giving Google my telemetry, I never visit Youtube.com anymore. But if I did want to watch a Youtube video, I would install Enhancer for Youtube. Basically, it blocks the ads that play before your video plus a whole lot more.
For continuity in my browsing activity, I install all of these in my Brave Browser as well. They are also available in the Google Chrome web store if you still want to continue using your Chrome browser and allow the Google mothership access to your browsing activity for free.
I make a lot of customizations in Firefox’s settings:
I set it as my default browser.
My homepage is set to a blank page.
New tabs are set to a blank page.
I unchecked all Firefox Home Content.
I set my Default Search Engine to Duckduckgo.
I uncheck provide search suggestions.
I use Standard tracking protection. Strict mode breaks way too many websites and creates a number of headaches for me. I often wear a tin-foil hat, but my entire wardrobe is not made of tin-foil.
I unchecked save logins and passwords in Firefox. That’s what my password manager is for.
I unchecked autofill addresses and credit cards. Because, duh.
I unchecked the boxes to allow Firefox to send technical data to Mozilla, install and run studies, and send backlogged crash reports.
….and I always browse the web with Virtual Private Network software running on my computer. I’ll share what VPN software I use, and for which device, in an upcoming newsletter.
The Message
It takes an investment of time and effort to access the internet comfortably, with a customized web browser, and without giving up all your online activity to…them. If you want an increased level of security on the web right from the start, Brave browser might be what you’re looking for. I want more protection in my online life, so I researched the heck out of Firefox, and all those add-ons, and wanted to share one component of my life as a technologist who is intent on pursuing anonymity online.