From Newsgroup: alt.comp.os.windows-10

On 24/8/2025 2:28 am, D wrote:

best browser extension ever invented by man . . .

Firefox 142.0
Tools > Extensions and Themes [Ctrl+Shift+A]

Switched to it from Adblock for many years... couldn't quite remember
why. Something to do with Firefox changing its add-on mechanism.
--
@~@ Simplicity is Beauty! Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch!
/ v \ May the Force and farces be with you! Live long and prosper!!
/( _ )\ https://sites.google.com/site/changmw/
^ ^ https://github.com/changmw/changmw
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From Newsgroup: alt.comp.os.windows-10

On 25/08/24 12:32 AM, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:

On 24/8/2025 2:28 am, D wrote:

best browser extension ever invented by man . . .

Firefox 142.0
Tools > Extensions and Themes [Ctrl+Shift+A]

Switched to it from Adblock for many years... couldn't quite remember
why. Something to do with Firefox changing its add-on mechanism.

Adblock started allowing certain ads through:

"Starting with version 2.0, Adblock Plus started allowing "acceptable
ads" by default,[72] with acceptable ad standards being set by The
Acceptable Ads Committee.[73] They charge large institutions fees to
become whitelisted and marked as "acceptable", stating "[Adblock Plus]
only charge large entities a license fee so that we can offer the same whitelisting services to everyone and maintain our resources to develop
the best software for our users." on their about page.[74]"

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adblock_Plus

uBlock Origin doesn't play that game.
--
John C. I filter crossposts, various trolls & dizum.com. Doing this
makes this newsgroup easier to read & more on-topic. Take back the tech companies from India & industry from China.

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From Newsgroup: alt.comp.os.windows-10

On 24/08/2025 09:24, John C. wrote:

On 25/08/24 12:32 AM, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:

On 24/8/2025 2:28 am, D wrote:

best browser extension ever invented by man . . .

Firefox 142.0
Tools > Extensions and Themes [Ctrl+Shift+A]

Switched to it from Adblock for many years... couldn't quite remember
why. Something to do with Firefox changing its add-on mechanism.

Adblock started allowing certain ads through:

"Starting with version 2.0, Adblock Plus started allowing "acceptable
ads" by default,[72] with acceptable ad standards being set by The
Acceptable Ads Committee.[73] They charge large institutions fees to
become whitelisted and marked as "acceptable", stating "[Adblock Plus]
only charge large entities a license fee so that we can offer the same whitelisting services to everyone and maintain our resources to develop
the best software for our users." on their about page.[74]"

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adblock_Plus

uBlock Origin doesn't play that game.

If you use Brave Browser, no adblocking add-on is needed.
--
Jim the Geordie
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From Newsgroup: alt.comp.os.windows-10

On Sun, 24 Aug 2025 09:48:33 +0100, Jim the Geordie wrote :

On 24/8/2025 2:28 am, D wrote:

best browser extension ever invented by man . . .

Firefox 142.0
Tools > Extensions and Themes [Ctrl+Shift+A]

Switched to it from Adblock for many years... couldn't quite remember
why. Something to do with Firefox changing its add-on mechanism.

Adblock started allowing certain ads through:

"Starting with version 2.0, Adblock Plus started allowing "acceptable
ads" by default,[72] with acceptable ad standards being set by The
Acceptable Ads Committee.[73] They charge large institutions fees to
become whitelisted and marked as "acceptable", stating "[Adblock Plus]
only charge large entities a license fee so that we can offer the same
whitelisting services to everyone and maintain our resources to develop
the best software for our users." on their about page.[74]"

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adblock_Plus

uBlock Origin doesn't play that game.

If you use Brave Browser, no adblocking add-on is needed.

My two cents... bearing in mind I never used extensions until early July
when Epic Privacy Browser went bust... I'm building two sets of DIY privacy browsers where I've settled (currently) on almost a score of extensions
(not counting VPN extensions) which are the following currently for the Chromium side of the family (given it was easier than the Mozilla side).

Browser: Brave and/or Ungoogled Chromium (LibreFox and/or MullVad)
1. Canvas Blocker - Fingerprint Protect : version 0_2_2
2. ClearURLs : version 1_26_0
3. Cookie AutoDelete : version 3_8_2
4. CthulhuJs (Anti-Fingerprint) : version 8_0_6
5. Decentraleyes : version 3_0_0
6. Extension Manager : version 9_5_2
7. Font Fingerprint Defender : version 0_1_6
8. LocalCDN : version 2_6_79
9. Location Guard (V3) : version 3_0_0
10. Privacy Badger : version 2025_5_30
11. Referer Control : version 1_35
12. Skip Redirect : version 2_3_6
13. StayInTab : version 1_0
14. Trace - Online Tracking Protection : version 3_0_6
15. uBlock Origin : version 1_65_0
16. User-Agent Switcher and Manager : version 0_6_4
17. WebRTC Control : version 0_3_3
18. NoScript is useful, but I find it a PITA so it's disabled for now.

The question came up from Mr. Man-wai Chang about Adblock Plus.

While there will always be overlap when you have a score of extensions,
a. uBlock Origin is more efficient (apparently)
b. It's said to be more powerful in supporting advanced rule creation
c. It's said to support dynamic & cosmetic filtering
c. Critically, it doesn't have an "acceptable ads" program
d. And it's often considered more actively maintained

Since there is a large amount of overlap, I left AdBlock Plus out of the
mix of privacy extensions that I'm testing for the DIY privacy browser(s).

But I could be wrong as I must state openly I never touched extensions
until being forced to give up on my daily driver privacy browser in July.

Side Note: The VPN extension test covering a score of supposedly free, ad
free, registration free VPN extensions is still a work in progress
covering, so far, the following successful & failed VPN extensions:

These passed initial testing criteria (free, account free, ad free):
1. browsec
2. hoxx
3. securefreeedgevpn
4. setupvpn
5. vpnly
6. xvpn
7. 1clickvpn
8. 1vpn

These failed initial testing criteria (free, account free, ad free):
a. hiddenbatvpn
b. hidemevpn
c. hotspotshieldvpn
d. itopvpn
e. protonvpn
f. tunnelbearvpn
g. urbanvpn
h. windscribevpn

Correction: I correct an earlier assessment that all the VPN extensions
"slow down" drastically within days; I think some of that is due to the plethora of privacy-baswed extensions - so I switched the testing over to testing instead the free,adfree,registrationfree system-wide VPNs with a free-adfree-regfree socks5 proxy (Psiphon) and, for non-browser
applications, a free-adfree-regfree proxifier such as ProxyCAp64/FreeCap.

Note I found out the hard way that Mozilla browsers handle proxies very differently than do Chromium browsers, which themselves handle proxies differently than most programs do where Windows has three layers of proxies that I had to write scripts (e.g., proxy.bat which morphed yesterday to proxy.cmd due to Windows quirks) to synchronize manually the three proxy mechanisms what Windows should have synchronized automatically. Sigh.

Note also that there are too many free/regfree/adfree system-wide
openvpn.exe free public VPN servers out there to list (many thousands!) so
it will take a while before I test them all sufficiently to declare which
free system-wide VPN server set is the easiest & fastest as all require additional software (e.g., softether or openvpn.exe) and scripts (due to changing passwords mostly).

Lastly, I wasted days testing proxy servers, of which there are so many thousands out there that you'd go nuts trying them all, but they're all apparently abysmal in terms of reliability compared to the acceptable reliability of the free public no-registration openVPN services that I'm currently testing. After days of a miserable existence testing them,
writing script after script after script to deal with their ephemeral
nature, I gave up concluding that you'd have to have TLA-like resources to
keep up with the few proxy services which stay alive long enough to be
useful.

Apologies for the long-winded response but that's the status of my testing
in a nutshell, in the fewest words that still convey accurate assessment.
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From Newsgroup: alt.comp.os.windows-10

On 2025/8/24 9:48:33, Jim the Geordie wrote:
[]

If you use Brave Browser, no adblocking add-on is needed.

How does Brave Browser block ad.s? I presume it's more than just a different-host (than the page being viewed) detector, since many pages
rely on scripts from hosts other than their home one, and some even use
images stored elsewhere.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
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From Newsgroup: alt.comp.os.windows-10

On Sun, 24 Aug 2025 17:11:04 +0100, J. P. Gilliver wrote :

If you use Brave Browser, no adblocking add-on is needed.

How does Brave Browser block ad.s? I presume it's more than just a different-host (than the page being viewed) detector, since many pages
rely on scripts from hosts other than their home one, and some even use images stored elsewhere.

Since I'm building my own DIY privacy browser, I looked that up just now.

Brave's built-in ad-blocking is apparently called Brave Shields, which
seems to act on every site using rule sets from EasyList, EasyPrivacy &, to
the point of this thread, uBlock Origin lists... each of which strives to identify and block well-known ad and tracker domains.

This is much like how our HOSTS file was used for years to block tracking.

Digging deeper, apparently Brave can also block JavaScript execution, which
is often used to load ads dynamically. This helps prevent those irritating pop-ups, autoplay videos, and interstitial ads.

Also, apparently Brave can hide specific HTML elements (like <div> or
<img>) that are used to display ads, even if they come from the same host.

Delving deeper immediately brought me into the Alice in Wonderland
complexity though, as Brave Brave apparently then goes even deeper than traditional ad blockers do, given it handles something called "CNAME Uncloaking", which means it detects when third-party trackers disguise themselves as first-party resources using DNS tricks.

Who knew? Not me.

It goes deeper than that with Brave replacing problematic scripts with privacy-respecting versions to maintain site functionality. Huh? How?

Deeper I went into the rabbit hole where Brave seems to be doing some fingerprint randomization to prevent tracking via browser fingerprinting by randomizing or removing identifying APIs.

Cookie Partitioning & Ephemeral Storage: Blocks cross-site cookies and
replaces third-party storage with temporary, auto-deleted versions.

In summary, it got complicatred fast when I looked up the answer for you,
but we can summarize to say that Brave doesn't block all third-party
content indiscriminately. Instead, it uses context-aware filtering by
allowing third-party scripts (like CDNs or analytics) while blocking known ad-serving and tracking domains.

Who knew?
Not me.

I'm confused but for ad blocking, Brave seems like a good starting point.
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From Newsgroup: alt.comp.os.windows-10

On 23/08/2025 19:28, D wrote:

best browser extension ever invented by man . . .

Firefox 142.0
Tools > Extensions and Themes [Ctrl+Shift+A]

Find more add-ons
Search addons.mozilla.org > ublock

Tor Browser 14.5.6
Tools > Add-ons and Themes [Ctrl+Shift+A]

Find more add-ons
Search addons.mozilla.org > ublock

Pale Moon 33.8.1.2
Tools > Add-ons and Themes [Ctrl+Shift+A]

Search all add-ons > ublock

https://addons.mozilla.org/

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/
Add-ons for Firefox (en-US)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/
uBlock Origin by Raymond Hill
Finally, an efficient wide-spectrum content blocker. Easy on CPU and memory. >> Recommended
Available on Firefox for Android(tm)Available on Firefox for Android(tm)
4.8 (20,901 reviews)
9,634,693 Users
Add to Firefox
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/downloads/file/4531307/ublock_origin-1.65.0.xpi

see also:
https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock

uBlock Origin - An efficient blocker for Chromium and Firefox. Fast and lean.

There is also uBlock Origin Lite for Chrome and Safari which purports to
be winning the ad blocking war.
Differences
- https://allaboutcookies.org/ublock-origin-lite-vs-ublock-origin
--
Regards
wasbit
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From Newsgroup: alt.comp.os.windows-10

On Tue, 26 Aug 2025 12:23:58 -0700, NFN Smith wrote :

I notice that PrivacyPossum isn't included here, but I don't think
that's an issue. I looked at that briefly recently, and while the anti-fingerprinting aspect is attractive, I didn't see that it did
anything useful for me.

Thanks for your excellent updates, where I'll need to respond to each of
the important ones alone and individually as each is a separate topic.

As can be seen in the DIY privacy browser thread, Privacy Possum was "attempted" but we had problems with VPN extensions on DIY privacy-based Mozilla browsers (i.e., librefox & mullvad) so we tested the extensions on Chromium first, where wasn't found so I gave up too early on it early on.

PrivacyPossum
https://github.com/cowlicks/privacypossum
No packages published https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-possum/ommfjecdpepadiafbnidoiggfpbnkfbj
This item is not available

However, Privacy Possum is apparently alive & well for Mozilla browsers.
<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/privacy-possum/>
Blocks third-party cookies
Strips referer headers
Spoofs browser fingerprinting attempts
Detects and blocks ETag tracking
Prioritizes making tracking inefficient rather than impossible

As you already astutely noted, there's overlap galore, such as
a. Trace covers fingerprinting & ETag blocking
b. Privacy Badger learns and blocks trackers dynamically
c. uBlock Origin blocks tracking methods with filter lists
d. Canvas Blocker, CthulhuJs, Font Fingerprint Defender all put together,
they cover fingerprinting well

While those are direct analogs of what Privacy Possum does,
A. ClearURLs removes tracking parameters from URLs,
which complements Privacy Possum's goal but isn't a direct match.
B. Decentraleyes / LocalCDN prevents CDN-based tracking by serving
local resources which is not part of Privacy Possum's core.
C. Location Guard obfuscates geolocation data, which is adjacent
to fingerprinting but it's not a Privacy Possum direct match.
D. WebRTC Control prevents IP leaks via WebRTC, which is important
for privacy but also it's not part of Privacy Possum's toolkit.

Given that, I appreciate that you brought up Privacy Possum as I was not
aware (yet) that it was available for Mozilla browsers so it's a win:win.

Much appreciated your valuable input.
I'll take the other concepts one by one when I look up the details.
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