Advice Request What extensions would you recommend?

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Enzo

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Aug 24, 2015
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Hi everyone,

First of all excuse me if the subject has already been discussed before.

My question is intended to know what extensions you would recommend, differentiating by categories (security, privacy, utilities, etc.)

In this regard, I have seen in the forum topics intended to discuss recommended extensions to block advertising, or as much respect security, but I think it would be good to create a thread with the extensions to consider according to their function.

All this derives because in Chrome and Firefox I have multiple extensions that are sure to be unnecessary, repetitive or worse than other options.

I thank you in advance for any suggestions you make and I reiterate that an "official" thread on recommended extensions would be fine.

Thanks again.
 

ChoiceVoice

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Oct 10, 2014
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-comodo uadblocker
-i still like WOT - i know they had a little scandal once. but i find them useful enough to overlook that.
-i also like to have a site checker from a major antivirus (ex. norton safe search or mcafee endpoint security web control). big companies like these have very large web databases.
-if you do banking etc, Trusteer Rapport. if you don't do banking then there's no need for it. (and there's no need for it if you already have security software that covers this for you already - but if you just have free antivirus protection, and you are moving money around ... it might be worth the extra resource usage).
 
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oldschool

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Knowing this will cause a lot of uBlock fan-boy reactions and responses, I hope this post helps to increase the insight of REAL WORLD adblocker capabilities and benefits.

OMG! I re-read this post and I'm having a Fanboy panic attack and I didn't even try your real-world head-to-head test. I'll give Adguard a whirl based on this post. Are you sure you're not @Windows_Security? ;)
 

Azure

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Since others already started comparing uBlock Origin and Adguard.

Something curious I have noticed. This is regarding Youtube ads.

If I use Adguard extension with its own filters, there are no ads. However if I use Ublock Origin with ublock's own filters + Adguard filters, I get ads.

One way to block ads is to use easylist filter in uBlock. This is odd because Adguard extension doesn't need to do this to block ads on YouTube videos

Anyone experience the same here?
 

Evjl's Rain

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HarborFront

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Lenny_Fox

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OMG! I re-read this post and I'm having a Fanboy panic attack and I didn't even try your real-world head-to-head test. I'll give Adguard a whirl based on this post. Are you sure you're not @Windows_Security? ;)
Further down in the thread I tested uBlock with Adguard filters only and uBlock did block those pesky popups also. When you are not tweaking your adfilters nor using dynamic filters, Adguard and uBlock have same blocking capabilities in real world conditions. The only advantage Adguard for (very easy mode uBloc users) has is that AG maintains their own filters (reducing the need of enabling tons of blacklists). Also Adguard has some additional privacy protection (but this is disabled by default).

Not W_S, am I missing something? Are you pulling my leg now?
 
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ErzCrz

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I really need to look at tweaking my ublock from the defaults at some point.

In general with Chromium Edge, I use ublock, Bitdefender and NoScript but noscript can get rather tedious at times and I have to allow temporary permissions here and there if I'm visiting a site fore the first time so I'm looking for alternatives. Maybe just adding netcraft and Privacy Badger is the answer?
 

Lenny_Fox

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@ErzCrz

When you have Edge-Chromium tracking prevention set at balanced, Privacy badger is a good add-on. When a website tracks you while visiting three different websites, Privacy badge will block it from tracking you. PB also has a whitelist to prevent blocking to much. I think Edge-Chromium also uses the blocklist of Disconnect (like Firefox, see link). Edge-Chromium developers sort of copied the firefox anti-tracking mechanisms (probably not code copying, but design ideas and Disconnect blocklist it is based upon).

Smartscreen is pretty good, when you use Windows Defender, install ConfigureDefender (link) and set protection to high. This will also add additional bad-url surfing protection to Windows Defender. When you have WD I would opt for Netcraft as additional phishing protection.

When you don;t use WD, I would add bitdefender because it provides great protection against bad-url's and phishing threats. Adding Netcraft would only provide marginal extra phishing protection, so I would add Bitdefender only.

There is a lot of nonsense in regard to use and benefits of additional protection. On forums you even see people advicing to add Spywareblaster to people using browsers based on modern technonoly (Active X is the know only used by Internet Explorer, link). Some think that more-rules-provide-better-protection. But that only marginally enhances security. When you add half a million bad-url rules to your content or ad blocker, this may seem a lot, but is only a fraction of the bad-urls's which AV (extensions) check in the cloud.

Regards Lenny
 
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ErzCrz

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@ErzCrz

When you have Edge-Chromium tracking prevention set at balanced, Privacy badger is a good add-on. When a website tracks you while visiting three different websites, Privacy badge will block it from tracking you. PB also has a whitelist to prevent blocking to much. I think Edge-Chromium also uses the blocklist of Disconnect (like Firefox, see link). Edge-Chromium developers sort of copied the firefox anti-tracking mechanisms (probably not code copying, but design ideas and Disconnect blocklist it is based upon).

Smartscreen is pretty good, when you use Windows Defender, install ConfigureDefender (link) and set protection to high. This will also add additional bad-url surfing protection to Windows Defender. When you have WD I would opt for Netcraft as additional phishing protection.

When you don;t use WD, I would add bitdefender because it provides great protection against bad-url's and phishing threats. Adding Netcraft would only provide marginal extra phishing protection, so I would add Bitdefender only.

There is a lot of nonsense in regard to use and benefits of additional protection. On forums you even see people advicing to add Spywareblaster to people using browsers based on modern technonoly (Active X is the know only used by Internet Explorer, link). Some think that more-rules-provide-better-protection. But that only marginally enhances security. When you add half a million bad-url rules to your content or ad blocker, this may seem a lot, but is only a fraction of the bad-urls's which AV (extensions) check in the cloud.

Regards Lenny

Thanks for this. I use WD and H_C at recommended, CD at high and the H_C firewall hardening recommended rules. Looks like I can ditch Bitdefender TL. I grabbed PB and Netcraft before work this morning so I'll go with those as you've suggested. Just need to look at uBlock tweaks. Maybe what @oldschool did with his :)

Thanks again.
 

Arequire

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Remember that chrome have bad privacy
Edge isn't much different privacy wise. Read through both privacy whitepapers:
Besides a few alterations they read essentially the same.

As for extensions, the only one I'd wholly recommend is an ad blocker. Everything else is ancillary.
 

Back3

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I think it is important, when adding extensions, to maintain a good balance between security and performance. I use WD with Configure Defender and Comodo Firewall at CS settings.
I use the New Edge to go to 5-6 favorites sites and only to these sites. My one extension on Edge is Ghostery and the page load is 1.45 second. Just for fun , i added Netcraft. It goes from 1.45 to 1.75 second.
My main browser is Chrome with Ghostery, TrafficLight and I don't care about cookies: the page load is 1.75 second. It's fast enough. I have 25 favorite sites on my toolbar and with these extensions, the surfing is good.
I think it's important to find a good combination of extensions that gives you protection and speed according to your surfing habits. To get that good combination, you have to read ..and experiment.
 
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Arequire

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but in chrome all data go to google.
Then disable the services which collect data you're uncomfortable with Google possessing:
Annotation 2020-01-16 161018.png

Also Microsoft remove or replace every google tracking related stuff:
Replace being the keyword. Your data isn't just disappearing into the void with Edge; you're just substituting Google for Microsoft as to whom your data is being processed by.

I'm won't go any further with this as it's off-topic and it'll just end up as some ridiculous argument. If you're happy with Edge then more power to you.
 

Azure

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