Privacy simplified: How anyone can make Mozilla Firefox a "Privacy Browser" using settings and AddOns!

By: Kryp70Kn1gh7

In honor of Cybersecurity Month in light of Facebook and the Cambridge Analytica Scandal while remembering Edward Snowden and our dear friends at the NSA.

For the same reason we have webcams on our computer desks but not our bathrooms, privacy is a human right that we all deserve. When researching what political candidates you wish to vote for, dealing with online banking, cryptocurrency trading, online shopping with your credit card, browsing the dark/deep/dank web, fighting censorship, utilizing freedom of speech, performing private research, freedom fighting or communicating past over reaching governments-- we could go on-- lets just all agree our privacy is an important human right. It is a human right that is becoming increasingly deteriorated before our eyes each and every year. Staying secure and anonymous is essential in maintaining your privacy and sometimes your livelihood or your way of life.

Some will try to tell us that we don't need privacy unless we have something to hide. I promise these same people are not willing to send me an email containing all of their passwords, private keys, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, nudes for taken for your significant other and social security numbers even if I asked nicely. These same people still close and lock the bathroom stall before taking care of business in public restrooms.

In fact Edward Snowden reminded us with this fact when he was involved in leaking classified documents detailing exactly how far our own government and governments in 14 countries across the world are willing to go in order to spy on us without our permission. More recently Facebook was found guilty of selling private data from millions of users to Cambridge Analytica that they had harvested from the social media platform without most people even realizing it.

It defeats the purpose to use a private cryptocurrency like Monero, Horizens or Zcash (the only three privacy coins that I even feel comfortable advocating for these days) if you are making purchases on Amazon while using Google Chrome while logged into services like Facebook to advertise your personal information to the world.

Granted you are never going to be as anonymous as you would using a self contained network such as the Tor browser or I2P but using those networks by themselves comes with their own individual issues and simply can not be used for everything we need to do on the interwebs.

Mozilla Firefox has been around since the mid-90s back when it was known as Netscape Navigator (fun facts for all of my nostalgia loving 90s kid readers) and even the infamous Tor Network formerly known as The Onion Router was built from the foundation of Mozilla's Backbone.

Today we are here to focus on a way to browse the web that is a well rounded and practical for day to day use, not to mention one of the most if not the most popular web browsers in the world. Using Firefox is at the very least, better than using Google chrome if you are wanting to protect your data.

Mozilla Firefox is open source so we can verify that that the legit code does not contain not back doors (as long as it is downloaded from a reliable source: https://www.mozilla.org/firefox). By adding some specific AddOns and by modifying some of your more advanced settings, you can experience a much safer browsing experience without being spied on.

The following tools and tips that I am going to show you will work on the latest version of Mozilla Firefox whether it is the developer's edition or not.

1.) The first thing that you are going to want to do is install the following AddOns to your browser by clicking the three bars in the top right corner and then clicking "AddOns":

Prevent Tracking using "Privacy Badger"



Privacy Badger prevents advertisers and other third-parties from secretly tracking where you go and what pages you look at on the web. Keep in mind that Google Analytics is FIRST-party which means that Google Analytics will NOT be blocked!! Use an additional blocker like uBlock Origin on top of Privacy Badger.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/privacy-badger17/

Stop Ads and Trackers using "uBlock Origin"

uBlock Origin is a godsend because it is whats known as a wide-spectrum-blocker that does not kill your memory usage. It can load and enforce thousands more filters than other well known ad blockers. It is free with no cringy monetization strategies and is of course, it is open source.

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/

Auto-Delete Cookies using "Cookie AutoDelete"

This Firefox AddOn automatically gets rid of cookies by removing them once you close the corresponding browser tabs. Lingering sessions with personal information will be expunged.

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/cookie-autodelete/

Install "HTTPS Everywhere" to encrypt your browsing.

The Tor Project and the Electronic Frontier Foundation bring you an extension/ AddOn that encrypts the data we send and receive with major websites effectively making our browsing that much more secure.

https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

Encrypt your emails using "Mailvelope"



Yes, people other than you and the person you are sending emails to can read your most private and personal email. Check my blog for my new article coming out soon about email and how to protect it. In the mean time get familiarized with this AddOn.

Mailvelope gives you the power of encryption using your regular email account.

Enhance your webmail provider with end-to-end encryption. Secure email communication based on the OpenPGP standard.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mailvelope

Block Content Delivery Networks with "Decentraleyes"

Automatically Emulates Content Delivery Networks locally by intercepting requests, finding the required resource and injecting it into the environment. Opensource and hosted on github.

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/decentraleyes/

Making Advanced Settings Modifications to Increase Privacy

Remember that some of these changes will increase privacy at the cost of reducing security. You need to ask yourself what is more important to you and what threats you are dealing with, personally because everyone's OpSec (OpSec stands for operational security and is a term we will be using a lot in these articles) is different depending on their needs. For more information please view the linked sources.

Click this link (http://www.privacytools.io) and scroll down a bit to the section that reads:

"Firefox: Privacy Related "about:config" Tweaks"

If you need help configuring the settings then check here:

1.) First open a new tab and type "about:config" into the URL navigation bar.



(Click "I accept responsibility" as long as you understand that I, Kryp70kn1gh7, do not take responsibility for anything that you accidentally break.)

2.) Copy and paste the setting that you want to modify so that you do not have to scroll down the list or risk modifying the incorrect setting.

For example:

To change "privacy.firstparty.isolate = false" to "privacy.firstparty.isolate = true" we need to copy and paste "privacy.firstparty.isolate" into the search bar like so:

3.) To make changes to the setting you are going to double click on the setting that you would like to make changes to.

To make changes to a setting with a value of either true or false we will change the value from true to false or vice versa by double clicking the highlighted setting.

To change a setting where it asks for a number value simply double click the setting line and it will bring up a box where you can simply change the number from 0 to 2 or whatever option fits for your privacy or security preferences.

network.cookie.cookieBehavior = 1

Disable cookies

0 = Accept all cookies by default

1 = Only accept from the originating site (block third party cookies)

2 = Block all cookies by default

Misc. sources and related information:

ffprofile.com - Create a Firefox profile to save/load your personal settings.

mozillazine.org - Security / privacy-related preferences.

user.js Firefox hardening stuff - a user.js config file for Firefox that "hardens" Firefox settings making it more secure.

Privacy Settings - Modify privacy settings using a toolbar.)

Hopefully you will be able to use this information to make your web browsing more secure from data spies. I am going to be focusing on privacy and cyber security in my upcoming articles so if you appreciated this information and would like to see more about a specific topic then please let me know in the comments.

If you want to support my anonymity, privacy and security research then you can donate anonymously using Bitcoin or privately using Zcash. (More info on cryptocurrency can be found at http://www.dailycryptonews.org)

BTC Address: 1FQ6rJZHToV5ZUPJCxtBHLBjdoTwkXk78g

ZEC Address: t1bpF18s3q7hMM9fjWwXbbGKpUj55ocb48Z

Check back later for reviews on other privacy browsers and tools!

Let us know what privacy, security and anonymity tools that you use in the comments below!

Source:

privacytools.io