Firefox in a Nutshell
Add Ons for Security, Privacy and Bypassing Censorship
There are many Firefox Add Ons that are useful for privacy and security and for bypassing Internet censorship. This chapter contains a short summary of some of our favourites.
Other important Add Ons are listed in other chapters of this guide and some of the concepts like using proxy servers are also covered in other sections.
Cookie Manager +
Cookie Manager+ is a simple tool which enables you to see what cookies are being set on your computer. Cookies are small bits of information stored by your browser. Some cookies may be useful to you and set by organisations you trust. Other cookies are are used to track the sites you are visiting.
You can access a list of the different cookies on your system by accessing the Cookie Manager + interface.
This interface allows you to protect the cookies that you want and are useful to you and delete the rest.
Stealthy
"Does your country/ organisation block you from facebook / youtube or other websites?" ask the makers of Stealthy. This tool was originally developed to help disseminate information in the Arab Spring.
The Add On allows you you to view content which may normally be blocked in your country. It works using proxy servers but instead of having to choose and set them up yourself it automatically selects them from a list kept up to date by the Add On developers.
This has the advantage of not having to keep constantly searching for up to date proxy servers and configuring them yourself. It is very easy to install and use. You can turn it on and off with a simple click of a button form your navigation toolbar.
When the button is red 'stealthy browsing' is off. when it is green it is on.
Clicking on the arrow next to the buttons allows you to set the configuration options.
There are PRO settings that you have to pay for after a trial period. However there are also settings which are free allowing you to either choose a proxy in a random location or to choose as specific country. If you do not want to pay make sure to set your configuration to use a non PRO option.
One disadvantage is that because the makers of Stealthy do the work to choose proxies for you, you lose some control over how your computer connects to the Internet.
Better Privacy
"Better Privacy serves to protect against special longterm cookies, a new generation of 'Super-Cookie', which silently conquered the Internet. This new cookie generation offers unlimited user tracking to industry and market research. Concerning privacy Flash-cookies are most critical.
This add-on was made to make users aware of those hidden, never expiring objects and to offer an easier way to view and to manage them - since browsers are unable to do that for you."
This Add On works in a similar way to other cookie managers. It can list and manage these Flash-cookies. It can also remove these objects when you start Firefox.
Usually automatic deletion of flash cookies is safe. You can protect certain desired Flash cookies. This might be needed if you play online flash games. After some configuration to project the flash cookies you do want you can leave this Add On running in the background where it will keep working without your attention.
World IP
This Add On shows the IP of the server you are connecting to. It aims to display "up-to-date information about physical location of a Web server you are currently visiting".
It represents this in different ways. By listing the country, showing a flag which can be displayed in the location toolbar, showing all IP addresses of the server (IPv4 and IPv6) and listing the name of the data center the webserver is hosted in.
After installing World IP, left clicking on the flag shown will bring up a summary of this information.
If you right click on the flag you will get a more detailed set of data and some tools which may be useful to check your security.
One of the tools available is Traceroute, which briefly lists the path of your Internet connection to other websites.
Do Not Track Me
DoNotTrackMe can stop identity thieves, authorities, advertisers, social networks, and spammers from tracking you.
When the Add On has been installed successfully, you will see a button appear on your browser toolbar. By default the Add On blocks all tracking.
When you visit a new webpage, the button will show you a number that indicates how many trackers were blocked on that particular page.
Clicking on the arrow next to the image will give you the option to Open DNTMe This will show you more information about who is trying to track you.
If you want to know more about tracking, who is doing it and how it works then the creators of DoNotTrackMe have created a Frequently Asked Questions page. 1
There is a huge variety of Add Ons which provide Do Not Track-like capabilities. Try Ghostery or Collusion if DoNotTrackMe doesn't work for you
- https://www.abine.com/donottrackme/faq/^