I believe that the only two privacy extensions you really need to meet 90% of your privacy goals are uBlock origin + NoScript
uBlock origin is effective because it stops the injection of ads which might contain and inject code. NoScript forces you to look at which scripts you really need for the website to function. Say you visit a trusted site, like your lemmy instance, then you can enable running of javascript by default the next time you visit the site. You’ll be surprised how functional some sites are even without javascript. I did not like the idea of browsers having Javascript: it’s remote code execution and if there’s anything malicious in there and your browser is not patched against it you’re fucked. This way yeah it’ll be annoying when you first visit a site but it remembers your settings for the next time you visit.
It’s crazy just how much of a PITA it is to use the internet when using NoScript
Using Noscript eventually causes me to give up using Noscript, which is probably the one thing I was supposed to avoid…
This was my experience as well, it was just way too inconvenient… Which is the crazy part, because it really shouldn’t be.
That’s why uBlock Origin is such a blessing: so many people have already contributed to figuring out what to block on so many websites.
Eh you can go with a blacklist approach and try to selectively block tracking instead of whitelisting everything until a site works.
But the worst scripts don’t even have UI for you to see.