In order to measure the user experience, Firefox collects a wide range of anonymized timing metrics related to page load, responsiveness, startup and other aspects of browser performance. Collecting data while holding ourselves to the highest standards of privacy can be challenging. For example, because we rely on aggregated metrics, we lack the ability to pinpoint data from any particular website. But perhaps even more challenging is analyzing the data once collected and drawing actionable conclusions. In the future we’ll talk more about these challenges and how we’re addressing them, but in this post we’d like to share how some of the metrics that are fundamental to how our users experience the browser have improved throughout the year.
I haven’t used noscript in a long time, but it is the only way I feel truly safe on the internet.
That said, I would never recommend it to the average non-technical user.
Average user, I would direct to uBlock Origin (make sure it is Origin, from gorhill or raymond hill, preferably from the extensions shop for your browser with lots of ratings).
For anyone inbetween uBlock Origin and noscript in techinical skill, I would recommend uBlock Origin + uMatrix (from the same developer). Has a small learning curve, but provides decent protection from 3rd party sites.
If you want protection from first party sites though… noscript all the way.
How about privacy badger for non technical users? Heard about it couple of times.
I know nothing about it. I know there are a group of extensions people generally use, and I feel like I’ve heard that name.
I stick with what I know and trust reputation wise. uBlock Origin is known and trusted far and wide, and any technical community should have at least heard of it.
NoScript back in the day was pretty well known, but I don’t think it is so well known now days; in large part because until you configure it for each site you visit, it makes every site unusable… the number of websites that don’t make use of javascript for some critical site functionality are almost 0 nowdays. It just cannot be recommended to any non-technical user; they might figure it out, but it is so frustrating for every site you visit to require configuration.
uMatrix died years ago since you can do the same things in uBlock & the result is easier to share.
I use uBlock in allowlist mode for JavaScript. The number of SPAs that shouldn’t be as well as zero effort put into a basic, semantic noscript to at minimum say what the script will do & remind to allow JS is pretty gross tho. Web developers need to do better.
people keep saying you can do the same thing in ublock as in umatrix but the UI is completely different and not nearly as intuitive and I don’t nearly have as granular control as I had in umatrix
I won’t disagree that uMatrix wasn’t a clearer UI for what it was doing but, a) it’s (IIRC) not as granular just blocking per domain & b) it’s mare difficult to share your settings with others. If you go thru the more obnoxious process of uBlock Origin of looking thru its request log window, you’ll have a plaintext file that easy to host for others to share or to contribute to a larger filter list project.
Because of this, I now maintain a public filter list I know some folks subscribe to, github-less-social. Now others can use or pitch in to a project where others don’t want to see Microsoft GitHub’s social features or product upsells when interacting with code projects that don’t respect the freedom of their users/contributors by forcing them into a Microsoft ecosystem.