cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1309480
I use Vivaldi (Chromium).
I currently use uBlock Origin, Tab Count, Dark Reader, Read Aloud, Google Docs Offline, Srroll In, OneTab Plus (the original OneTab app kept glitching on me), and Dyslexic Browser.
I’m willing to have 15 apps/extensions for my browser and then probably no more after that (otherwise, the memory it’ll take up will just make browsing super-slow, at least up until I finally upgrade my RAM card, which should be soon). Dunno if you can really use more than 15, to be perfectly honest, but I’m open to advice.
I want apps/extensions for university, research, reading and comprehension, language-learning, video-editing, and general QoL changes.
Also, let me know if I should still be using Vivaldi. What browser do you use? To me, Vivaldi is so far the best browser out there, at least currently (after having tried Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Opera). What extensions do you use as well for your browser of choice?
Let me know and let’s give each other advice or whatever. Cheers!
I use firefox, so I’m not positive if all of these are available for chromium based browsers.
Each extension varies in how big it is, so there isn’t an easy rule for how many extensions to use. Also, if you’re trying to increase privacy, many extensions can make your browser fingerprint more easily identifiable.
uBlock Origin - I have it set to block everything by default like NoScript, whitelisting sites as I use them. I used to use uMatrix for this before it was discontinued, but this works well enough.
Tridactyl - Advanced vim-like keybindings. It has more features than something like Vimium, but I’ve had it occasionally break sites so I had to change the noiframe settings listed on the troubleshooting page.
Midnight Lizard - I’ve been using this lately instead of Dark Reader. It has much more customization, but I’ve occasionally had it mess up on some sites.
CanvasBlocker - Sends out fake info to make your browser fingerprint different each time. This doesn’t fully prevent fingerprinting with how I have my add-ons set up, but it at least makes the job harder for trackers and gives them less real data.
Local CDN - local copies of common libraries, so you don’t access a bunch of 3rd party sites to download javascript. This sends your data to fewer sites, but if you’re trying to stay anonymous it makes your fingerprint more unique.
AutoTabDiscard - This unloads inactive tabs, which comes in handy if you have a ton of tabs open. You can disable it for any sites you always want to keep active. You can also tweak how many tabs to keep open and how long before it tries to discard them.
Leechblock NG - Set time limits for how long you want to spend on each site. If you use it right it can help break addictions to certain websites.
Stylus - I use it for a couple of sites that just have really terrible styles or don’t work well with dark mode.
AutoFill Forms - Handy for if you have any repetitive forms you need to fill out.
DownThemAll - I don’t use it often, but really useful when there’s a bunch of links to download.
ViolentMonkey - Per site custom javascript. I don’t use this much, but occasionally comes in handy to make a website do what you want.
Tab Reloader - for sites that you want to keep refreshed.
I’ve got a bunch for integration with various websites and software:
I’m pretty sure these are Firefox only, but I’ll leave them here for anyone else who’s interested.
Simple Tab Groups - I like using this to organize my tabs into groups. There’s probably better ways to not have so many tabs open but it’s convenient to have a bunch of open tabs when I want them.
Multi-Account Containers - Helpful if you have multiple accounts on the same site, or want to keep your cookies separate for different tasks.
Firefox Translations - adds more language options to Firefox’s offline translation.
This is… pretty definitive.
You really put a lot of thought into this. Thank you! I’m saving this comment of yours.
This question gets asked pretty often, so I’d been meaning to write something up for a while. Browser extensions were one of the first ways I got interested in free software, and there’s a lot of really useful ones out there.
If you want even more options, here’s some I have installed but disabled.
thnx
You don’t need Allow Right Click on Firefox: just press shift and then right-click. Firefox will then ignore JavaScript and show you default context menu.
Thanks, I didn’t know about that. I looked into this a bit more and there’s actually a bunch of techniques, and shift right click only gets around some of them. There’s a tester tool at https://webbrowsertools.com/test-right-click/ with examples of blocking right clicks, text selection, and copying/pasting text.
You might be interested in Tab Stash on Firefox. Let’s you create groups like tab groups but you can close and reopen them.
It looks like a good extension, but I feel like my setup works better for my workflow. Tab groups with auto tab discard has a similar effect, and there’s an archive option for when I really want to unload the whole group.
Tab groups are really handy for multitasking if you use multiple desktops. I have a window open on each desktop, and switching between tab groups switches to the relevant desktop.