this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
102 points (100.0% liked)

Privacy Guides

16741 readers
1 users here now

In the digital age, protecting your personal information might seem like an impossible task. We’re here to help.

This is a community for sharing news about privacy, posting information about cool privacy tools and services, and getting advice about your privacy journey.


You can subscribe to this community from any Kbin or Lemmy instance:

Learn more...


Check out our website at privacyguides.org before asking your questions here. We've tried answering the common questions and recommendations there!

Want to get involved? The website is open-source on GitHub, and your help would be appreciated!


This community is the "official" Privacy Guides community on Lemmy, which can be verified here. Other "Privacy Guides" communities on other Lemmy servers are not moderated by this team or associated with the website.


Moderation Rules:

  1. We prefer posting about open-source software whenever possible.
  2. This is not the place for self-promotion if you are not listed on privacyguides.org. If you want to be listed, make a suggestion on our forum first.
  3. No soliciting engagement: Don't ask for upvotes, follows, etc.
  4. Surveys, Fundraising, and Petitions must be pre-approved by the mod team.
  5. Be civil, no violence, hate speech. Assume people here are posting in good faith.
  6. Don't repost topics which have already been covered here.
  7. News posts must be related to privacy and security, and your post title must match the article headline exactly. Do not editorialize titles, you can post your opinions in the post body or a comment.
  8. Memes/images/video posts that could be summarized as text explanations should not be posted. Infographics and conference talks from reputable sources are acceptable.
  9. No help vampires: This is not a tech support subreddit, don't abuse our community's willingness to help. Questions related to privacy, security or privacy/security related software and their configurations are acceptable.
  10. No misinformation: Extraordinary claims must be matched with evidence.
  11. Do not post about VPNs or cryptocurrencies which are not listed on privacyguides.org. See Rule 2 for info on adding new recommendations to the website.
  12. General guides or software lists are not permitted. Original sources and research about specific topics are allowed as long as they are high quality and factual. We are not providing a platform for poorly-vetted, out-of-date or conflicting recommendations.

Additional Resources:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

So as the title mentions, I'm wondering how much is too much?

I am currently using Brave with the setting to:

  • Aggressively block trackers & ads
  • Only connect with HTTPS
  • Block fingerprinting
  • Block cross-site cookies

In addition to that, I have installed the following extensions:

  • uBlock Origin
  • Ghostery
  • Decentraleyes
  • DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials

So my question is: Is this overkill? If so, what should/could be removed that may be redundant? I want as much coverage as possible, but not have things bloated.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I mean ublock origin is really all you need imo so I guess one

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

I disagree. Test your set up here :

https://d3ward.github.io/toolz/adblock.html

I use ublock and ad guard (app and DNS) together to get to 100%.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I get 100% using only ublock in firefox, without configuring either. Note that stacking filters not only reduces performance, but also increases your fingerprint.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

just firefox + uBlock Origin => 100% - with the correct filterlists enabled ;)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Hmm, interesting tool! With just Brave blocking I get 96%, but turning on uBO, I get 100%.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Please never do this! Read this thread from the developer of uBlock Origin. Using multiple content blockers together like this can and will cause issues, as well as will increase fingerprinting, etc, and there's no gain or benefit at all from doing so.

I would disable Brave's built-in ad/tracker blocking (leave the rest of the Shields' functionality enabled), and would solely use uBlock Origin, and remove the other extensions. (You could even just stick to Brave's built in ad/tracker blocking if you want to, but I just prefer uBlock Origin for its advanced features and compatibility)

As far as Decentraleyes goes, its essentially abandoned. You can use LocalCDN instead if you wish to do so, though its privacy benefits are debated. I mainly use it since I use uBlock Origin in Hard mode (which it complements uBo very nicely in both Medium or Hard Mode), and for the performance boost it gives, but its up to you. Ghostery and DDG Essentials should definitely be removed. (While DDG Essentials isn't only content blocking, its other features are also just completely redundant and unnecessary with Brave)

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I use the extensions based on the Arkenfox user.js wiki. He describes what's obsolete or redundant, etc. It's a good quick read.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Brave is trash and its owned by an asshole. I use adblock browser in my phone and Firefox otherwise. Not sure about the owner or Dev or whatever, but it's much better quality for blocking ads.

An answer to the more pertinent question of how much is too much, however? None. There's no such thing as too much ad blocking.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Why is it trash?

And why are Americans obsessed with the politics of who makes a product?

Its a free, as in free beer, browser. By using it you are not donating money to the CEO.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure he donated to (or still donates to?) homophobic action groups.

That's more than enough reason to boycott something that person is in charge of, imo

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

How does that affect the software.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

When you support software you support the company making it, allowing them to grow and profit. If someone does not want to financially support the actions of someone they disagree with, then that is fine.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I do not want success for that man, therefore I'm not going to give his project market share

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Market share.. Of something that can be had free? You are making less and less sense.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (11 children)

Yes, because if the browser has no market share, there is no point in it continuing to exist and the company folds.

I don't care if it's free or costs money, the man gets paid if the product is successful. I don't want to support him, therefore I don't use the product. If enough people agree with me and do the same, the product dies & the man fails. Or at the very least the rest of the company kicks him out and the man still fails.

Like this isn't rocket science

load more comments (11 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In 2008 he donated $1000 in support of California Proposition 8. I don’t know of anything else, at least publicly. Californians also voted and passed the amendment 52%/47%, it was thrown out by the courts.

More recently in 2020 he did say some of the typical conservative stuff about COVID lockdowns, mask mandates, calling Fouci a liar, etc.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Never mind the American politics nonsense, Brave has a history of slightly dodgy behaviour. Replacing websites ads with their own, keeping donations meant for creators, hijacking referral links and adding in their own, a lot of cryptocurrency shenanigans, and that's just what's on Wikipedia!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

I agree with you, that's irrelevant. What's not irrelevant is that it's chromium as in based on chrome, the browser trying to add drm to internet pages. Please use Firefox instead

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (33 children)

Given that the US has almost zero privacy legislation, the politics of the owner/maker often hints at decisions that eventually make it into the software. Many of the reasons to avoid chrome and chromium are similar to this, though not about a specific person but about the values that google holds in fucking over standards. We see this reflected in some of the decisions of say social media platforms (even "free-as-in-beer" ones) and many companies.

In many cases, you're still giving them money and/or power to continue fucking up open standards.

load more comments (33 replies)
[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You just need uBlock. The other add-ons are redundant.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (6 children)

uBlock origin + NoScript. Imo.

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yes for the browser i agree, sadly apps have trackers and ads too. A dns can be useful if it's system wide for all that stuff. Nextdns, adguard, rethinkdns or decloudus comes to mind

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You can have what Brave does except block ads/trackers, which uBO can cover anyway, but on Firefox or Librewolf instead. For extensions, ditch Ghostery.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

My rule for this is if tor uses it its pretty dam good aka No script + Ublock Orgin

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Ditch ghostery and replace with privacy badger.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Is PrivacyBadger not made redundant by uBlock or any of the other extensions?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)

PrivacyBadger functionality is now built into uBO.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Use Firefox with ubo. Stop using chromium browsers.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

With brave you don't need any of those addons.

On Firefox just uBlock is fine.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

brave has its own 'issues' that should keep you far away from it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I don't use it just because I'm not a fan of how chromium browsers work. They have had some controversies too around their crypto stuff and other things, but I'm not too familiar with them.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You don't need any of those.

The functions and lists of uBlock are built into Brave. Most of the rest are redundant. You're just having the opposite effect that you're trying to achieve. These extensions are just used to fingerprint you.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Yup. Overkill. But, thankfully extension removal is just a click away. More users should ask questions like this.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I've tested a few browsers using Eff's Cover Your Tracks website. The best is TOR, but Brave with no extensions is second, it said it provided a randomized fingerprint. Tried it with Firefox with uBlock and it said my comp had a unique fingerprint. Mullvad browser faired slighty better, cant recall the score, but at least it wasn't unique. I tried it with Librewolf also with a load of extensions and it was a poor score as well. So, imo, you don't need extensions with Brave. I think my settings are the same as yours.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just one is too many. The goal is to blend in not stand out. Use Mullvad Browser and Tor Browser.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Are you really standing out when over a third of all internet users use adblockers? Source in German

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Websites can also dingier print you by your browser settings and extensions.

So, having a lot of extensions can defeat the purpose of privacy.

I try to keep default settings and a minimal number of extensions.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It depends on what browser and what extensions. Previously addon could be fingerprinted by detecting what web resourves they used (i think just chromium). On firefox extensions can get detected by sensing certain telltale changes they provide. eg. Inserting js in dom or blocking of ad/tracking domains. Even if the extension itself isnt identified, unique settings and multiple content blockers will make kinds of fingerprinting possible.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Honastpy at this point you should turn them all ofi and set up a pi hole

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

pihole by itself does not remove all the ads and trackers, just ones that come from different hostnames than the site being accessed--which can be blocked by dns.

a browser-based blocker is essential.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Pi hole is great for blocking ads from IoT devices like TVs or streaming boxes. But pi hope can’t block things like YouTube ads.

load more comments
view more: next ›