[newzooreview]

If security and privacy are a concern, a secure and private browser complements a VPN but can never be a substitute for a good VPN.

Without a VPN, your internet service provider is sniffing, compiling, and selling your web search and browsing history. They sell you overpriced bandwidth that they never fully deliver and then they spy on you and sell data about you. They look at where you are going online and what you are dong there. In a recent case a person was subject to criminal action because his service provider saw he was using the bittorrent protocol. It turns out the person was legally downloading a Linux installation.

The way to protect yourself from the ISP is to use a good VPN. Probably 2/3 of VPN providers are not good, but there are a handful that are very actively focused on privacy. I use IVPN because they don't have any server logs that could be disclosed, they open source their software for transparency and bug hunting, and they independently audit their security and privacy and publish the results. There are other options and some reviews at https://restoreprivacy.com/vpn/reviews/

Once the ISP snooping is under control, the browser then provides site-specific security and privacy, primarily through extensions that lock down the browser. Browsers have been building in privacy features more and more, but none of them is robust. Running a so-called "ad-blocker" is a necessity because there is no such thing as an advertisement on the web. An advertisement such as a billboard or TV commercial does not spy on you, track your behavior, and feed information back to a secret dossier. The web keeps using the word "advertising" becasue it is familar and convenient to hide the fact that it's really trojan horse malware loaded onto your computer when you visit a website.

I like Firefox because it has the broadest range of well-made security and privacy extensions like u-Block Origin and NoScript. It's also very low-key about pushing its add-on services like setting up a Firefox account (no thanks) or using the Firefox VPN service (I would rather not have all my eggs in one basket in that regard).

I tried Brave and it was a lot more pushy and (to me) deceptive about its add-on services versus its core functionality, although I expect it could be made to work without being ensnared in their ecosystem.

Above and beyond all of that, on the Mac I run Little Snitch because a lot of apps phone home and send data without requesting permission. Little Snitch alerts me to that and lets me block or allow. When I see apps phoning home I typically remove them unless I trust the developer, the purpose was disclosed, and I opted in to it (e.g., the app is pinging an update server).

[WGH]

I like Firefox because it has the broadest range of well-made security and privacy extensions like u-Block Origin and NoScript.

I never had a problem with Firefox (90.0b1 64 bit) although the next update will be a big consternation to some in this thread:
"Background Update is now available on Windows. This feature will allow Firefox to update, even if it is not running. It will be slowly rolled out to all Windows users over the next few months."

I have run the Adblock ad-on forever and my reaction to targeted ads is "Facebook has ads? I didn't know that"
The Facebook Container extension puts a fence around Facebook so they can no longer track your movements after you leave their site (bet you didn't know they did that).
Malwarebytes Premium + Browser Guard stops any malicious downloads or trojans. Malwarebytes Premium has realtime protection plus it stops all ransomware attacks. I would never ever consider having a computer without it, the software catches stuff missed by an antivirus program so running both is absolutely necessary.

Along with Eset NOD32 antivirus I fearlessly go anywhere and everywhere on the internet.

I tried the Tor Browser but it broke too many websites.
https://www.torproject.org/download/

[newzooreview]

"Background Update is now available on Windows. This feature will allow Firefox to update, even if it is not running. It will be slowly rolled out to all Windows users over the next few months."

Can you turn off background update?

Seems ok if you want to enable it but obviously alarming if it's an uncontrollable zombie process. I'm only on the regular release channel, so I'm on v. 89 as of a couple days ago.

[WGH]

Yes, updates are still user controlled, you can:

"Check for updates but let you choose when to install them"

Uncheck the box "Use a background service to install updates"

[Randy]

I never had a problem with Firefox (90.0b1 64 bit) although the next update will be a big consternation to some in this thread:
"Background Update is now available on Windows. This feature will allow Firefox to update, even if it is not running. It will be slowly rolled out to all Windows users over the next few months."

I have run the Adblock ad-on forever and my reaction to targeted ads is "Facebook has ads? I didn't know that"
The Facebook Container extension puts a fence around Facebook so they can no longer track your movements after you leave their site (bet you didn't know they did that).
Malwarebytes Premium + Browser Guard stops any malicious downloads or trojans. Malwarebytes Premium has realtime protection plus it stops all ransomware attacks. I would never ever consider having a computer without it, the software catches stuff missed by an antivirus program so running both is absolutely necessary.

Along with Eset NOD32 antivirus I fearlessly go anywhere and everywhere on the internet.

I tried the Tor Browser but it broke too many websites.
https://www.torproject.org/download/

With Norton Security, MalwareBytes-Browser Guard (at your advice) Eset is not redundant? If it isn't, what does it provide the others don't?

[FullRangeMan]

Probably I am misunderstanding. The choice to disable automatic updates remains in the General Options settings where it has been for years. I just double checked this on Firefox 89 on a Windows 10 machine and a Mac.

Perhaps you aren't scrolling down when you go to Options-->General? It is down the screen a ways.

The option that was deleted by Mozila was Never Update FF.

[WGH]

The option that was deleted by Mozila was Never Update FF.

The developers figured out Never Update was probably a bad idea. All those companies that have been hacked recently never updated.

Under the General setting

[FullRangeMan]

The developers figured out Never Update was probably a bad idea. All those companies that have been hacked recently never updated.

Under the General setting

I was co worker from pragrammers for 18 years in a steel plant more 2 years in a phone company, they rarely have any idea from what the users want, they just want finish his pgm asap.

[WGH]

With Norton Security, MalwareBytes-Browser Guard (at your advice) Eset is not redundant? If it isn't, what does it provide the others don't?

In April 2019, Norton Security was replaced by Norton 360
Norton 360 is a good product, it does the same thing as Malwarebytes and Eset.

Norton products used to be a system hog and noticeably slowed a computer down, I stopped using their products for that reason. I hear they have improved.

[Folsom]

I'm sure you found it already, but this worked for me:

about:config

search for "browser.proton.enabled" and set to false

search for "browser.proton.contextmenus.enabled" and set to false


There are still a few minor changes I'm not happy with (super light tab colors),
but the big issue of double-spaced bookmarks is fixed.

This helps A LOT. The other thing I found that helps is "clean brushed steel" theme, although I'd like to remove the texture... I just wanted to find one that didn't feel like it was... I dunno... BURNING MY FUCKING RETINAS. Who decided this was an upgrade? DAmn... so bad.

Ok I found win 95/98 gray and it's probably the best so far for themes.

[Letitroll98]

Norton products used to be a system hog and noticeably slowed a computer down, I stopped using their products for that reason. I hear they have improved.

They're still a memory hog, computers have gotten fast enough with enough memory that with a few improvements to their platform you don't notice it as much.  It still slows my old Win 10 laptop down if it decides to run a scan while I'm doing something.

[newzooreview]

The option that was deleted by Mozila was Never Update FF.

I must still be misunderstanding. The second option means Firefox will never update unless you manually initiate the update. It is identical to "Never Update FF"

Not only can you stop Firefox from updating itself (as a built-in setting), you can install any previous version of Firefox that you would prefer:

https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/

[FullRangeMan]

I must still be misunderstanding. The second option means Firefox will never update unless you manually initiate the update. It is identical to "Never Update FF"

Not only can you stop Firefox from updating itself (as a built-in setting), you can install any previous version of Firefox that you would prefer:

https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/

I must still be misunderstanding. The second option means Firefox will never update unless you manually initiate the update. It is identical to "Never Update FF"
Install previous FF versions mainly v71 or other under v75 are really useful to get rid from unsolicited updating and preserve valuable add-ons.

I see you firm entrust Mozila and this option Let You Choose to Install Them fully satisfies you, but today most users dont have this low requirements for a browser, thats why FF has sunk in the customers preference in lasts years.

The option I was referring was this> Never Check for Updates when Mozila deleted this option they let clear they dont give a damn about their users.

[FullRangeMan]

This helps A LOT. The other thing I found that helps is "clean brushed steel" theme, although I'd like to remove the texture... I just wanted to find one that didn't feel like it was... I dunno... BURNING MY FUCKING RETINAS. Who decided this was an upgrade? DAmn... so bad.

Ok I found win 95/98 gray and it's probably the best so far for themes.

Try these light green themes one may please you:
Soft Theme (Green) by Jane Lin
the green by prashantkumbhare
All Green Theme by Firefox user 14364426
Emerson's Green Theme by Emerson
Green Pop Theme Z by zhorikk
Green Supreme by QUEEN
Druidic summer by JigenD

[garyalex]

They're still a memory hog, computers have gotten fast enough with enough memory that with a few improvements to their platform you don't notice it as much.  It still slows my old Win 10 laptop down if it decides to run a scan while I'm doing something.

I've used Norton products for years.  In my experience their days of being performance-slowing hogs are over.

[newzooreview]

The option I was referring was this> Never Check for Updates

Got it. 

You can disable checking for updates using a policies.json file. On a Windows system you make a folder wherever the firefox .exe file is located. This folder is named "distribution" without the quotation marks and with a lowercase d. This, and all of the settings available, is documented by Mozilla: https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templates/blob/master/README.md

To create the policies.json file you would open a basic text editor (I guess Notepad on a Windows machine?) and just paste in the settings desired. Save the file with the name policies.json (and make sure the text editor does not tack a .txt file extention on the end. The file extension is .json)

Below is a set of useful ones: I have installed these and they are working on Firefox v89. Changing the text from true to false allows control of the setting. If you want an older style separate seach bar to the left of the address bar, the last setting can be changed from unified to separate.

{
 "policies": {
   "DisableAppUpdate": true,
   "DisableFirefoxAccounts": true,
   "DisableFirefoxStudies": true,
   "DisablePocket": true,
   "DisableTelemetry": true,
   "DontCheckDefaultBrowser": true,
   "SearchBar": "unified"
   }
}


I found the list of settings above on the forum linked below, but the placement of the policies.json file given in the posting is out of date. The Mozilla documentation linked above specifies the correct placement of policies.json file for v.89.

https://linuxreviews.org/HOWTO_Make_Mozilla_Firefox_Stop_Nagging_You_About_Updates_And_Other_Annoying_Idiocy

[Mike-48]

If security and privacy are a concern, a secure and private browser complements a VPN but can never be a substitute for a good VPN. ...

Thanks for an excellent and well-informed post. I have been avoiding VPN because of the large speed hit. Maybe it's time for me to re-evaluate that.
I find positives and negatives in the appearance of the latest FF. But I stick with it because its main business isn't spying on me and selling the data -- can't say that about Google.

[newzooreview]

I have been avoiding VPN because of the large speed hit.

In the past that was my experience as well, but now the VPNs are not a bottleneck. I do turn it off for major OS updates, but even downloading hi-res files from HDTracks, for example, seems to be limited by the server not the VPN throughput.

Biggest hassle is having to turn off (temporarily) VPN for a few websites that won't load when the request comes from a VPN. My gas company was like this for a while--typically places that have little to no experience IT support. I think the lazy IT person gets a generic block list that includes VPN servers because someone (one of the thousands of users of the server) at some point did something suspicious from that server. Those types of issues tend to clear up, but there are still some sites that are brain dead about it.

Other than that, the good ones that you pay for don't slow things down any longer.

[FullRangeMan]

Got it. 

You can disable checking for updates using a policies.json file. On a Windows system you make a folder wherever the firefox .exe file is located. This folder is named "distribution" without the quotation marks and with a lowercase d. This, and all of the settings available, is documented by Mozilla: https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templates/blob/master/READ6ME.md

To create the policies.json file you would open a basic text editor (I guess Notepad on a Windows machine?) and just paste in the settings desired. Save the file with the name policies.json (and make sure the text editor does not tack a .txt file extention on the end. The file extension is .json)

Below is a set of useful ones: I have installed these and they are working on Firefox v89. Changing the text from true to false allows control of the setting. If you want an older style separate seach bar to the left of the address bar, the last setting can be changed from unified to separate.

{
 "policies": {
   "DisableAppUpdate": true,
   "DisableFirefoxAccounts": true,
   "DisableFirefoxStudies": true,
   "DisablePocket": true,
   "DisableTelemetry": true,
   "DontCheckDefaultBrowser": true,
   "SearchBar": "unified"
   }
}


I found the list of settings above on the forum linked below, but the placement of the policies.json file given in the posting is out of date. The Mozilla documentation linked above specifies the correct placement of policies.json file for v.89.

https://linuxreviews.org/HOWTO_Make_Mozilla_Firefox_Stop_Nagging_You_About_Updates_And_Other_Annoying_Idiocy

Thanks 
I already do it afew days a go, but I very  appreciated your valuable contribution, the vast majority of members refuse to respond let alone contribute for free.

There is one more way to stop unsolicited updates, uninstall Mozila Maintenance Service.

[newzooreview]

Speaking of VPN's, here's a good overview of Apple's "Private Relay" feature that will be available in the Fall update to the OS. https://www.macobserver.com/tips/deep-dive/digging-into-apples-icloud-private-relay/

Apple Relay will function like a two-hop VPN in many respects, and it will be available for, it appears, as little as 99 cents per month.

 The new OS (called Monterey) will also let everyone disable the tracking pixels in e-mails, so opening an e-mail no longer reports on you back to some marketing/spam outfit. Most people don't even knoe that e-mails they receive can silently disclose information.