# Firefox Privacy

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This article overviews some useful extensions which enhance security and privacy while using the Firefox web browser.

## HTTPS Everywhere

HTTPS Everywhere is an extension which encrypts your communication with a website. It forces a connection over HTTPS instead of HTTP wherever possible.

HTTPS Everywhere will be automatically configured and enabled upon restarting Firefox. For information on how to set up your own rules for different websites please visit the official website.

Note: HTTPS Everywhere does not magically enable HTTPS for every site on the internet. The site needs to support HTTPS and HTTPS Everywhere should have a ruleset configured for that site.

## Adblock Plus

Adblock Plus can be used to stop intrusive advertisments but it can also be configured to block websites from tracking you.

Once installed visit the Easy List website and add the EasyList and EasyPrivacy lists to your Adblock Plus filter subscriptions. This is done by simply clicking any of the "Add [filter] to Adblock Plus" on the webpage. This will bring up the add filter prompt. Review the details and click "Add Subscription".

EasyList is the primary subscription that removes adverts from English webpages, including unwanted frames, images and objects.

EasyPrivacy is a supplementary subscription for EasyList which removes all forms of tracking from the internet, including web bugs, tracking scripts and information collectors.

## Disconnect

Disconnect is a open source project aimed at stopping 2,000 third-party sites from tracking a user. It encrypts data sent to popular sites and claims to loads web pages 27 percent faster. Disconnect shows its users, in real time, how many tracking attempts from Google, Twitter, Facebook, and more are stopped. It categorizes tracking attempts into advertising, analytical, social, and content, which makes it easy to monitor how one is being tracked.

Disconnect can also stop side-jacking, which utilizes stolen cookies to steal personal data. It's easy to use and well supported. It can be added to Firefox at the official website.

## Ghostery

Ghostery is similar to Disconnect, but is a proprietary project to track businesses which employ the use of website trackers. From the website:

Ghostery tracks over 1,000 trackers and gives you a roll-call of the ad networks, behavioural data providers, web publishers, and other companies interested in your activity.

Ghostery can be installed from the official website. Once installed Ghostery can be configured from:

     chrome://ghostery/content/options.html

Or by selecting preferences from the Add-ons Manager in Firefox which will bring you to the configuration page.

Alternatively you can configure Ghostery through the included wizard:

     chrome://ghostery/content/wizard.html

From the configuration page you can configure what 3rd party elements(3pes) Ghostery should block. When navigating the categories you can click on the individual profiles for more information about that specific company. You can also choose to clear Flash and Silverlight cookies on exit. Also, you can enable the cookie protection feature which prevents selected websites from setting cookies in your browser.

## NoScript

NoScript is an extension which disables JavaScript, Java, Flash and other plugins on any website not specifically whitelisted by the user. This extension will protect you from exploitation of security vulnerabilities by not letting anything but trusted sites (e.g: your bank, webmail) serve you executable content.

Once installed you can configure settings for NoScript by either clicking its icon on the toolbar or right clicking a page and navigating to NoScript. You will then have the option to enable/disable scripts for the current page, as well as any third party scripts that the page is linking to. Alternatively you can choose to enable scripts temporarily for that session only.

For more detailed configuration see the NoScript FAQ.

## Cookie Monster

Cookie Monster is a similar extension to NoScript but will the goal of managing cookies.

From the preferences for Cookie Monster select "Block All Cookies". Once this is done, just as with NoScript, you can enable the use of cookies for specific pages from either the Cookie Monster icon on the toolbar or by right clicking the page and navigating to Cookie Monster. You have the option to accept cookies from the website in question or alternatively to only temporarily allow cookies for the current session.

## RefControl

RefControl is an extension to control what gets sent as the HTTP Referer. Once installed RefControl can be configured so that no referer gets sent when navigating to a new webpage. This prevents the server from knowing which website you originated from.

To do this open RefControl's preferences and change the setting for "Default for sites not listed:" to <Block>.

## RequestPolicy

RequestPolicy is an extension for Mozilla browsers which lets you have control over cross-site requests. The latest development version lets you blacklist or whitelist requests by default. Disabling unnecessary cross-site requests leads to better privacy, safety and faster browsing.

For more information on cross-site requests and RequestPolicy visit here.

Category:

- Web Browser