Advanced Plus Security LinuxFan58's PC Security Config

[Sampei.Nihira]

If you can't do without it...

 

[wat0114]

Nice and secure configuration you have there. Btw, is the built-in password manager KeepassXC or something else?

 

[LinuxFan58]

I replaced ControlD with Cloudflare Zero Trust free plan (thanks @rashmi for posting).

Reason was that I am running out of 300.000 queries limit, when I am doing a lot of research when developing new courses for the business university I am working for (teaching my old profession for fun as pensionado). I am impressed with the granular control and option ot add a (unique) warning or explanation sentence for each policy

 

[LinuxFan58]

The website permission settings of my hardened browser profile

Spoiler: Hardened website permissions with explanation from ChatGPT

 

[Sampei.Nihira]

I'm curious, did you harden Thunderbird or not?
I've hardened the email clients I've used over time without any problems, including increasing the sandbox level to default:

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/hardening-thunderbird.432718/

 

[LinuxFan58]

@Sampei.Nihira Yes, done

 

[Sampei.Nihira]

@LinuxFan58

It is interesting to note that your rule in uBoL that blocks Beacon (object) does not intercept JavaScript, does not intercept browser APIs, and does not intercept sendBeacon.
The navigator.sendBeacon() API is blocked by one of my rules that you are familiar with.
It allows data to be sent in the background even when the user leaves the page, without blocking loading and without being easily intercepted.
It is one of the preferred APIs for modern tracking.
Even though the percentage of website breakage, especially for payments, is high.

I chose it for greater Beacon coverage.
Let me show you the results of the rule's prevention as processed by ChatGPT 5.2:

 

[LinuxFan58]

@Sampei.Nihira

Yes you are right, but then I have to switch to AdGuard Mv3 or uBo Mv2. which I don't want at the moment (AG for geo political reasons and uBo because it lowers the speedometer 3.1 benchmark so much)

 

[Sampei.Nihira]

I am really happy with Cloudflare zero trust. Running 5 firewall policies and removed all browser extensions.

View attachment 294418

I would recommend that you at least create general rules in Brave's internal adblock to block these trackers that are not blocked at the DNS level.
In my opinion, 6-9 rules with general validity would be sufficient.



P.S.

What is Rule 2 based on?

 

[Sampei.Nihira]

Incredible, congratulations.
You have just exceeded your underestimated average user rating.

 

[LinuxFan58]

Okay I admit, could not do anything today because trains were cancelled due to excessive weather conditions (snow and storm Goretti). So I cancelled the meeting and started playing with Cloudflare. Wanted to increase privacy a little so I reduced the logs to block only and enabled removing sensitive information (free plan has fixed retention period). Watched another episode of Gangs of London and filled my time with the absolute summon of useless activity by changing ...

Spoiler: Custom block page with extra explanation line to show/know which policy blocked this domain

The use of setting your own blockpage is that you can add a custom reason per policy (reden: website website staat op de zwarte lijst van websites die schadelijke software verspreiden). I changed the background colour (because my wife found the default to much in your face)

 

[Sampei.Nihira]

Because of @Andy Ful malware filter testing and @Sampei.Nihira adfilter optimization testing, I added two extensions:

• Work profile: Avira Safe browsing with anti-tracking enabled. The mild anti-tracking compliments nicely with the mild advertisement blocking of Cloudflare. Also Avira's URL filtering provides best results when testing malware, phishing and fake shopping links in combination with Cloudflare and Google Safe Browsing.
• Surfing profile: Privacy Badger in learning mode (l know it can be misused, but it has never occurred in the wild) to compliment Brave's adblocking. This combo resulted in the lowest third-party exposure after a day of surfing.

Security and privacy wise I should be okay with Avira Safe Browsing and Privacy Badger extensions (one is bound to strict German privacy regulations and the other is developed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation).

Setup finalized

Get this:

Could you get more?
Maybe, I don't have any experience with Brave's built-in adblock.

I would block 1p script on all websites outside your TLDs in your aggressive profile.

You would also get 3p script blocked at the same time.
Almost certainly 3p frames too.

+ Privacy/security without adding extensions.

However, I have some doubts about this aspect (frame) in PB.
It would be better to ask the AI.

I would leave PB in your moderate profile.

If you're interested in trying it, I'll write down the simple rules, which I'm sure you can write yourself.

 

[LinuxFan58]

Brave in Aggressive mode also blocks first party. I use PB in learning because it shows third-party exposure also. When those 3P are useless (from user experience perspective) connections I block them in PB. Until now I only added 1 domain.

I used uBol only allowing some trusted TLD's but the number of blocks were zero. Same with your rules in AG you pm-ed.

With my surfing behavior Brave Shields seem to do very well. This is why I want to know what the actual 3P exposure is.

 

[Sampei.Nihira]

Brave in Aggressive mode also blocks first party. I use PB in learning because it shows third-party exposure also. When those 3P are useless (from user experience perspective) connections I block them in PB. Until now I only added 1 domain.

I used uBol only allowing some trusted TLD's but the number of blocks were zero. Same with your rules in AG you pm-ed.

With my surfing behavior Brave Shields seem to do very well. This is why I want to know what the actual 3P exposure is.

What I wrote in my previous post is that even if you block 1p scripts and therefore also indirectly 3p scripts + PB, you may not achieve a total block of 3p frames.

Dynamic filtering: Benefits of blocking 3rd party iframe tags


However, with uBo, I know this for sure because 3p frames have a separate setting.
With your configuration, I don't know.
And I believe there is a reason for this separation.

Ask the AI.
It's just a suggestion.

 

[LinuxFan58]

Well thanks to @TairikuOkami and @Sampei.Nihira I changed extensions again. using uBol to limit exposure to a few common Top Level Domains in Surfing Profile.

 

[Sampei.Nihira]

Okay finally decided (at least I think and hope so ) on what extensions to use. In my surfing profile I run Brave Shields in aggressive mode (default blocklists plus Bypass paywalls and AdGuard's URL tracking protection). This is the reason why I have disabled all filters in AdGuard. The Custom rules are inspired by Tak

Spoiler: AdGuard Custom rules

! **********************************************************
! Block rules to increase security and privacy             *
! **********************************************************

! Block tracking pings and beacons
||*$ping
#%#//scriptlet('abort-on-property-read', 'sendBeacon')

! Block risky and depreciated EVAL javascript command
#%#//scriptlet('noeval')

! Block everything except from common Top Level Domains
||*$all,denyallow=nl|be|de|uk|eu|com|edu|io|net|org|abuse.ch

! Block file share services also used to host malware
||anonfiles.com$all
||discord.com/attachments$all
||file.io$all
||gofile.io$all
||hastebin.com$all
||ix.io$all
||pastebin.com$all
||pixeldrain.com$all
||tmpfiles.org$all
||transfer.sh$all
||ufile.io$all
||uploadfiles.io$all
||volafile.org$all
||zippyshare.com$all


! Block Linux executable and script formats on code sharing domains
||bitbucket.org/*.awk$all
||bitbucket.org/*.bash$all
||bitbucket.org/*.js$all
||bitbucket.org/*.ksh$all
||bitbucket.org/*.php$all
||bitbucket.org/*.pl$all
||bitbucket.org/*.rb$all
||bitbucket.org/*.sed$all
||bitbucket.org/*.sh$all
||bitbucket.org/*.tcl$all
||bitbucket.org/*.zsh$all
||bitbucket.org/*.elf$all
||bitbucket.org/*.aout$all
||bitbucket.org/*.coff$all
||bitbucket.org/*.bin$all
||bitbucket.org/*.deb$all
||bitbucket.org/*.rpm$all
||bitbucket.org/*.tar.gz$all
||bitbucket.org/*.tar.xz$all
||bitbucket.org/*.flatpak$all
||bitbucket.org/*.appimage$all
||bitbucket.org/*.snap$all
||github.com/*.awk$all
||github.com/*.bash$all
||github.com/*.js$all
||github.com/*.ksh$all
||github.com/*.php$all
||github.com/*.pl$all
||github.com/*.rb$all
||github.com/*.sed$all
||github.com/*.sh$all
||github.com/*.tcl$all
||github.com/*.zsh$all
||github.com/*.elf$all
||github.com/*.aout$all
||github.com/*.coff$all
||github.com/*.bin$all
||github.com/*.deb$all
||github.com/*.rpm$all
||github.com/*.tar.gz$all
||github.com/*.tar.xz$all
||github.com/*.flatpak$all
||github.com/*.appimage$all
||github.com/*.snap$all
||githubusercontent.com/*.awk$all
||githubusercontent.com/*.bash$all
||githubusercontent.com/*.js$all
||githubusercontent.com/*.ksh$all
||githubusercontent.com/*.php$all
||githubusercontent.com/*.pl$all
||githubusercontent.com/*.rb$all
||githubusercontent.com/*.sed$all
||githubusercontent.com/*.sh$all
||githubusercontent.com/*.tcl$all
||githubusercontent.com/*.zsh$all
||githubusercontent.com/*.elf$all
||githubusercontent.com/*.aout$all
||githubusercontent.com/*.coff$all
||githubusercontent.com/*.bin$all
||githubusercontent.com/*.deb$all
||githubusercontent.com/*.rpm$all
||githubusercontent.com/*.tar.gz$all
||githubusercontent.com/*.tar.xz$all
||githubusercontent.com/*.flatpak$all
||githubusercontent.com/*.appimage$all
||githubusercontent.com/*.snap$all
||gitlab.com/*.awk$all
||gitlab.com/*.bash$all
||gitlab.com/*.js$all
||gitlab.com/*.ksh$all
||gitlab.com/*.php$all
||gitlab.com/*.pl$all
||gitlab.com/*.rb$all
||gitlab.com/*.sed$all
||gitlab.com/*.sh$all
||gitlab.com/*.tcl$all
||gitlab.com/*.zsh$all
||gitlab.com/*.elf$all
||gitlab.com/*.aout$all
||gitlab.com/*.coff$all
||gitlab.com/*.bin$all
||gitlab.com/*.deb$all
||gitlab.com/*.rpm$all
||gitlab.com/*.tar.gz$all
||gitlab.com/*.tar.xz$all
||gitlab.com/*.flatpak$all
||gitlab.com/*.appimage$all
||gitlab.com/*.snap$all
||gitlab.io/*.awk$all
||gitlab.io/*.bash$all
||gitlab.io/*.js$all
||gitlab.io/*.ksh$all
||gitlab.io/*.php$all
||gitlab.io/*.pl$all
||gitlab.io/*.rb$all
||gitlab.io/*.sed$all
||gitlab.io/*.sh$all
||gitlab.io/*.tcl$all
||gitlab.io/*.zsh$all
||gitlab.io/*.elf$all
||gitlab.io/*.aout$all
||gitlab.io/*.coff$all
||gitlab.io/*.bin$all
||gitlab.io/*.deb$all
||gitlab.io/*.rpm$all
||gitlab.io/*.tar.gz$all
||gitlab.io/*.tar.xz$all
||gitlab.io/*.flatpak$all
||gitlab.io/*.appimage$all
||gitlab.io/*.snap$all
||sourceforge.net/*.awk$all
||sourceforge.net/*.bash$all
||sourceforge.net/*.js$all
||sourceforge.net/*.ksh$all
||sourceforge.net/*.php$all
||sourceforge.net/*.pl$all
||sourceforge.net/*.rb$all
||sourceforge.net/*.sed$all
||sourceforge.net/*.sh$all
||sourceforge.net/*.tcl$all
||sourceforge.net/*.zsh$all
||sourceforge.net/*.elf$all
||sourceforge.net/*.aout$all
||sourceforge.net/*.coff$all
||sourceforge.net/*.bin$all
||sourceforge.net/*.deb$all
||sourceforge.net/*.rpm$all
||sourceforge.net/*.tar.gz$all
||sourceforge.net/*.tar.xz$all
||sourceforge.net/*.flatpak$all
||sourceforge.net/*.appimage$all
||sourceforge.net/*.snap$all

I think you'll need to add .cc to the list of TLDs excluded from the rule, otherwise you won't see some of Tak's images.
Try it.
The general Noeval rule will also require you to add some exceptions.

 

[Sampei.Nihira]

I don't do any booking, buying or banking with my surfing profile (use work profile for that), so have not ran into website breakage (yet).

About CC are your sure?
View attachment 294688

Forgive me.
.co.
You know, it was hunger...

 

[Sampei.Nihira]

One more warning.
There are some websites that “mix” permitted TLDs with prohibited TLDs.
In this case, any exception rules become confusing.
Example

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/

In this case, a pure dynamic rule applied in uBo has the correct effect.
Unfortunately, however, any static exception rules do not have the desired effect.

Applied to AG, where it is not possible to insert dynamic rules but only static rules that simulate the same effect as dynamic rules... the result obtained is unambiguous.

In my case, I never come into contact with such websites.

 

[Sampei.Nihira]

One last thing, otherwise I'll be rocking the boat too much, but I don't think your rules for blocking downloads from GitHub (etc.) are correct for blocking malicious executable downloads.

Check it out:

URLhaus | Checking your browser

URLhaus | Checking your browser

Instead, the ones I use are correct:

 

[LinuxFan58]

Spoiler: Yes com.au is blocked in AG, you are right

@Sampei.Nihira
Okay I extended the countries to Schengen countries and 5 Eyes

I don't block Windows exe on my Linux laptop