Firefox is NOT private. Here's how to fix it. (Firefox Hardening)
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- čas přidán 3. 07. 2024
- I bet you thought Mozilla Firefox was a privacy-respecting, secure web browser, right? But by default, Firefox actually has a lot of anti-privacy features and settings enabled. In this video, I'll show you how you can disable a lot of the cruft that Firefox ships with, as well as turn on a lot of hidden preferences to make your browser even more private. We'll also compare three popular user.js files, including Betterfox, Arkenfox, and Narsil's user.js, each with different levels of privacy. After a little bit of configuration, you can finally have the web browser you always dreamed Mozilla would make...
Betterfox: github.com/yokoffing/Betterfox
Arkenfox: github.com/arkenfox/user.js/
Narsil's user.js: codeberg.org/Narsil/user.js/s...
🌐 My website: ericmurphy.xyz
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0:00 Intro
0:19 Does Mozilla really care about privacy?
2:44 Advanced privacy options
3:08 Mozilla ads and annoyances
3:44 about:config
4:13 What's a user.js file?
5:36 Installing user.js files
7:41 Making overrides in user.js
8:56 Advanced privacy with Arkenfox user.js
9:57 Arkenfox overrides
10:59 resistFingerprinting or not?
12:59 Arkenfox updater
14:21 What I don't like about Arkenfox
14:43 Narsil's user.js
15:14 Google safe browsing or not?
16:42 Which add-ons should you use?
17:37 My recommendation
18:00 What about Librewolf?
18:37 Conclusion - Věda a technologie
The ironic thing is that if you point out that Firefox is not truly private (just like this video factually indicated) on the Firefox subreddit in Reddit, your post got deleted for 'reasons of spreading misinformation' by one of their power hungry mods. The only reason I'm still using Firefox today is because I dislike google chrome monopoly. The day Firefox took away the ability to edit userchrome css and user.js file, I'll be out for good and will be looking to switch to one of their forks, if Firefox even exists by that point as their market share drop below 1% and Mozilla continue to strip away browser feature, ignore user feedback, raising their CEO salary and are more interested in political activism than developing their browser.
Reddit mods suck
If you do, pls tell us. Like via CZcams video or reply to my comment.
Oooooga boooga @@mattslegochannel
@@mattslegochannel Well same here, i will also be watching for a reply, so that i know its time to switch
Reddit is just a toxic place. I would use LibreWolf, but it is not opening maximized which is a bit annoying. I really don't know how that can improve my privacy. IMO 1920x1080 is a lot more common screen resolution than 1600x900 used by LibreWolf.
Hi Eric. I don't know who you are, and I don't know if you're actually a cybersecurity professional, but the way you explain concepts and the easy to follow process deserve my confidence.
I've seen some of your videos and I think both your channel and the quality of your videos are amazing. Keep it going and thanks for the info.
I'm not a cybersecurity professional, I just play one on CZcams. 😅
Thanks for your kind words and I'm glad my videos have been of help to you!
I've been trying to make the leap from Windows to Linux for a while now, and I'm finally getting myself a bit accustomed to Linux, and your straightforward guides have been incredibly helpful in doing that. All the tools that well-intentioned developers put into creating beginner-friendly distros, graphical interfaces, et cetera, wind up making things incredibly complicated, that it can honestly just be a rat's nest to navigate. Your tutorials are easy to follow, practical, and colloquial enough for me to get my footing in this community. Thank you.
Welcome! Welcome! Welcome. Get ready for the ride of your life - a good_time ride. No more subscriptions. No more fees. No more worrying about updates. I've used Zorin for the last several years and I have to think back to the last time that I had pay for an app or software
How is Linux going for you now?
@@BeTechAware After working with it for about 6 months, I wound up getting a solid grasp, but it wound up being so much work trying to fix every little thing that was going wrong with it, no matter which distro I used, that I wound up making a custom Windows installation and giving up.
Before I made my new PC, I had an NVidia GPU, which caused a lot of issues. It couldn't wake up from hibernation properly (which I use instead of shutting off and turning back on), which, while not a deal breaker, sucked. I frequently had issues with default privacy settings that I couldn't figure out were causing me issues, since they were default and wouldn't inform me. The thing that was a deal breaker for me was that I couldn't get any games to work with an issue I couldn't diagnose. After following several tutorials teaching me how to set up Proton, WINE, et cetera, I kept running into some weird VRAM issue. So, I gave up.
Until I got my new PC that is. AMD GPUs have so many fewer issues that I was able to finally get it working. I still use a custom Windows install for games (since some of them still don't work on Linux regardless), but use Zoren for everything else. It was cool setting up all my little customizations over the course of a week, then forgetting everything I did and running into issues because of them. Like archaeology of myself.
@@morgan3392 Cool that it worked out, from my experience most people use Linux on laptops with ARM64/x86_64 and x86 with integrated intel graphics, Linux on a PC sounds like a nightmare with all the incompatibilities.
Excellent topic for my students when we tackle the computer science topic “cryptology”.
Thanks for giving such a good step-by-step tutorial. I'll definitely create a link for "videos worth watching".
Amazing video, you have converted me for the better, Thank you.
Excellent video. Thank you so much
Thanks for sharing your knowledge in a easy to understand fashion. Liked and subbed
as soon as i got on fire fox i set it to strict and such
thought the problem with tech is it can feel like no much changes since you are still getting mined just not as had despite going through all these loop holes and such
still good video and not bad thing to look into
also you can turn off the thing on the right well at least unplug it from your bar
Thanks for the video. LibreWolf is surfing like a breeze without the problems of my (still) beloved Firefox.
I really like this channel.
I use it too but can't install on IOS and I need my browsers synced :(
On LibreWolf when I enable resistfingerprinting it breaks youtube videos. It puts bands across the bottom ~half. Does it not do that for you?
@@clashwithkeen I just use it with standard parameters. I really don't have so much privacy to protect.
Maybe a silly question, but why instead of making overrides can't we just delete the line from user.js ( ok maybe this won't work ) or revert the setting from about:config?
Applications frequently have 'default' settings, and without express configuration settings, will default to settings that are less secure. Depends on the app of course.
There's no need for a canvas blocker if you use arkenfox. Temporary containers is a good addon. But overall, cross browsers is the way to go. I use my allowed to know stuff on the daily brave browser and run separate ssb's ( not apps, ssb's) for the rest. Completely sandboxed site specific browsers on an arkenfox/containerized firefox base. On a sidenote, there's something baked into firefox since a couple of years, and that's miti. You might wanna read up on that.
I was hoping for more of a settings and about:config rundown than a "download this" how-to. I prefer to go through such recommendations point by point, because invariably there will be some that I think are either paranoid or that will break things I need to work, or that don't go far enough. But I guess that's more the stuff of a detailed web page or blog post than a short video.
This would be a great additional video to run through and give a brief explanation as to what each config does
Why is it considered that "check that firefox is default browser" is bad for privacy? Does it sent some data or does the OS potentially send something when it detects another browser has been made the default browser?
Yeah I thought that was a bit silly. It just checks what your systems MIMEType is for web browser and requires no internet connection to do so.
Geolocation is one HUGE ONE.
Scriptsafe is a good extension to get and use.
Also, see about running firefox in a sandbox.
Scriptsafe may work, but it has basically been abandoned not being updated since 2021 so tread carefully.
@@terminalvelocity4858 Not worried about governments as much as I am web sites.
So far, it seems to work OK.
Need browser developers to isolate the extensions people use from all scripts and web sites.
Thanks for that great video - I am loving betterfox so far. YT videos play again ;-) - and it is amazingly fast! Thanks a lot!
6:33 what is that where you see your files and stuff? looks cool
Thank you, Eric.
Kind of wish you had done this on a Windows OS too, for the few folks who can't use Linux for compatibility reasons.
I go the gist of it anyways, so thanks!
The process is the same on Windows, though. Is there anything specifically that you're confused about?
@@EricMurphyxyzNot at all; was just weirded out a bit at the start :)
may i ask what you did? im stuck in the file bit, unsure what to do lol
@@EricMurphyxyz The file explorer looks drastically different that's why. And the directory and name might be different on windows. If you at least used a graphical file explorer us windows users would prob still be able to figure it out by what you click on.
Can you make a video about Android browsers?
This video was very helpful. Thank you for making this. I just have one question after this. Does this method work on Windows as well? I've come across another video saying that i need to edit the user_pref line in about:config for it to load on windows.
My browsing experience on linux is going kinda shitty. Brave created a ton of sub-processes overtime and eventually stopped loading pages.
Librewolf was excellent but after about a week some youtube videos stopped loading with Media#3 error.
Firefox with betterfox and some tweaks going well so far..
Fingers crossed for Betterfox 🤞
hows it
Is there a way to mash the config of betterfox with firefoxGX without everything breaking?
Loving the Betterfox settingas but now CZcams doesn't open on private windows, any ideas?
I use Waterfox, it's quite chill.
Hi, i tried this w/o knowing everything thinking all is ok but when I already applied user.js i can't browse google/facebook/youtube anymore deleting the user.js didn't solve the issue yeah I know its my fault for not reading all those readme etc. but how do I restore my profile now?
A nice video. Which file in that list would you recommend using for normal user?
Betterfox.
@@EricMurphyxyz link download
Turning on ResistFingerprinting in LibreWolf breaks youtube. It puts bands across the bottom half of the video. Is there a way to fix this?
Firefox hangs and can't connect to the internet for 10s of seconds on first boot, but using Betterfox with sync override completely fixes this, I guess my shit upload speed hangs Firefox while it sends a couple of megabites of data (at least ) on first boot
Another reason to disable Mozilla telemetry, nice!
whre to save page zoom? resistfingerprint not working where in overrdirve?
outstanding video!
What solution do you use for bookmarking/saving sites?
For my bookmarking needs I use the bookmarks lol. I don't really need to sync them or anything fancy so I don't need any third party tool
You can have a normal text file or spreadsheet with bookmarks.
Yes it's manual, but browser independent.
@@replikvltyoutube3727bonus that making it a spreadsheet means you can add hyperlinks to just click on them to return.
So extensions like privacy badger or Ublock Origin don't help to protect your privacy from Mozilla's telemetry?
They do for some of it.
uBlock can't block what browser itself does - only what webpages do ;-)
my about:profile Root/Local Directory both show Open Folder to a new windows browser, not the Open Directory to that configuration menu at 6:24, with no option to apply or confirm any selection.
same
Firefox View can be removed. Right click on the icon and select remove from toolbar. Tested with LibreWolf 119.0-7.
but what can we do to firefox on Android? is it possible to tweak it like that?
Good chance yeah. Idk if the user file is any different on android but you can actually still find app files on android usually.
At 6:23, the file manager you say opens - doesn't. Windows 11 opens the File Manager showing the entire directory full of files.
It opens the user profile folder, right? You should be able to create the user.js file inside that folder.
@@EricMurphyxyz What file type should I create the user.js file for W10?
@barronmaurice3179 .js file? tf is even wrong with u?
Thank you for the helpful video but how to I add the extra things in the Github page for example the Betterfox there is some code called Fastfox how would I add that?
Fastfox is a part of betterfox
Do I need user.js if I use uBlock origin?
I have two questions about Betterfox, since i don't know how to contact anyone that works on it i will be asking here, hoping that someone will know : First, why is OCSP disabled by default, and second, what is this "Tell websites not to sell or share my data" option ? And why it isn't avaible on vanilla firefox ? And using it wouldn't make me more unique ?
Hi. If I update Firefox, will it remove the changes done by Betterfox?
no
No, but you would have to download a newer user.js created for this newer version (there are small changes here and there)
when I do that my youtube videos stops working. it just not starting how can I fix this ? halp pilz
What web browser would you recommend?
I'm mid-vid here. :D
Thanks btw!
librewolf is good, it's basically stripped down firefox with some privacy features
I felt some hardening happening while watching this for sure
Which DE is that on your Arch?
and which file-manager? looks very efficient :D
Looks like Wayland or dwm. It could be another window manager though.
for the DE it probably is Hyprland and the file manager is ranger ig
The file manager looks like complete ass and a nightmare to navigate.
What about the Vivaldi Browser for privacy?
I belive the reason they have built the browser to provide enriching seamless user experience without worrying too much about privacy and tech details to go through. However by adding some button like opera will simplify.
weird as user.js doesnt show my windows OS as 32bit.
I'm new to Linux, but I would like to ask what distro are you using and what desktop environment??
He's using Arch. It says so in the terminals that he's using in the video
probably arch with a window manager, or some minimalistic configured DE.
effort isn't worth it it opens up in files instead of directory
download librewolf instead. It's a fork of firefox that already does all this shit right out of the box.
thank you for the content
thank you very much
Kindly educate us on securing firefox for Android. Appreciate your videos ❤
How to remember / stay loged in on websites when i close browser? i tried setup password section (cookies, cache, autofil etc all i set to false) and still when i close browser i must log in.
For the best privacy, a lot of user.js files clear all cookies when the browser is closed. You can change this setting from the preferences ("Delete cookies and site data when Firefox is closed"). But instead, I recommend manually allowing some websites to save cookies and clearing the rest. You can allow a website to save cookies by pressing Ctrl + I, go to Permissions, and under Set Cookies click Allow. Cookies from that website will then no longer be cleared when the browser is closed.
@@EricMurphyxyz I already figured it out... I had more problems also with kaspersky and certificate resolved security.cert_pinning.enforcement_level 2 on security.cert_pinning.enforcement_level 1. If i want save zoom on web pages privacy.resistFingerprinting on false, if i want allow working kaspersky password manager addon in browser browser.privatebrowsing.autostart on false. All privacy.clearOnShutdown (cache, downloads, history etc on false. Also privacy.cpd (cache, history etc all on false).
can't you do all these hardening things with Brave as well?
brave uses chromium
I got extremely confused in the middle, what do you mean by better fox profile? You legit skipped a step entirely
He did not ;-)
Create a new profile (he shown how) or just copy user.js to a default one
Just to share, this is an illuminating well informed video, but at my advanced age >60, I do not have the confidence to make the changes you recommend without direct confirmation. The User jpg configuration replacement you showed looks too involved and complex for an average user like me. Best wishes,
Can you do this in mobile?
I feel lile the basic Firefox was a Google honeypot. It is so annoying that we have to fight for our privacy. We even have no real choice. No service, no browser ask you "would you like to pay and stay private or use me for free sharing your data"? In 90's Internet was the haven of freedom, but it is copletely oposite these days.
I'd rather not pay and still be private 🏴☠️
not very techy here at all so if what i am saying appears nonsesical, well it is coming from my lack of knowledge and skepticism. I do not trust anyone easily. First of all thanks for the confirmation info on FF. I do not use the strict settings because as you said I was not able to access some sites, specially school sites. So i have gone manually disabling stuff, annoying af? you bet! But in a world where we sacrify almost everything for the sake of convenience I do take my time to go thru and unclick everything i know is not imporant (little i know). Now here is my question, instead of pushing other people's programmes wouldnt be better to teach us how to go into those menus ( i didnt klnow they exist) and show us what to do? Isn't depending/installing programmes we don't know anything about mosre risky? How do we know that we aren't endangering ourselves even more... I mean, better the devil that we know that the one we dun? isn't it? Again thanks for the confirmation...it is hard to find any one company not willing to sneak one up on someone...any comments on Proton stuff ?
I use arkenfox with a user override file
Can't go wrong with that, arkenfox with some overrides is solid
I been using firefox for over 10 years
lol this video reminded me of early 2010s tutorials for pc stuff I used to dig into
NoScript takes care of Google analytics, as well as getting you past most paywalls.
now I have become based, the hardener of firefox
can you do a video on windows os, ik the process is the same but im having trouble
update?
Yeah, doesn't help that he used that weird ass file manager instead of at least using a graphical one.
I was going to ask about Waterfox. Well. That's that. :)
thanks
Necesitan mantener a la fundación, prefiero usar Libre Wolf que un Navegador monopolizado como Chromium
Can this be done on MacOS?
probably but at that point just use safari...
I am using librewolf which is a fork from Firefox.. its all about privacy with librewolf
It won’t allow me to paste all the code….
Administrator rights problem ;-)
how to sync my bookmarks to the android app
They will sync automatically once you login your firefox account on desktop and android
*LibreWolf already did* the "hardening" job for you 😁✌ GreeTs and G0Dbless➕youAll
this
this. process shown in video is just a waste of time when libre exists.
@Eric Murphy i totally loved Libre wolf but the only reason why i am here is i was on git and i wanted a zip file of the code , for some reason Libre wolf doesn't download the file ......... I must say i was very disappointed .
Its seems betterfox does not disable firefox sync anymore? The string "identity.fxaccounts.enable" is not in their config.
so which one of these should i Use..i care abt privacy but also want dark mode and functionality of websites...like youtube,etc
Like I said in the video, Betterfox is probably the best compromise between privacy and usability
@@EricMurphyxyz I see , one more things is that what is the disadvantages of using ungoogled chrome with good extensions?
@@dastan4750 Ungoogled chromium is another good option in my opinion, but it's a little less customizable and the addons are a bit harder to install and update. Both are good, and I have a full video on ungoogled chromium as well.
@@dastan4750 Betterfox is probably equivalent to Brave in terms of privacy. Arkenfox and Narsil probably aren't worth it unless you want to spend a long time configuring it to your own needs. For most people, Betterfox + a good, private search engine will be enough to defeat a lot of tracking across the internet (but not all).
I've heard of ffprofile but I've never used it, may be a video in the future...
librewolf. none of this crap required.
Does Netflix still work with that?
With Betterfox, I think so. With the others, I don't think so. You may have to manually enable DRM in order for Netflix to work or use a different browser for Netflix.
@@EricMurphyxyz yeah I noticed that Netflix didn’t work on LibreWolf and I tried fixing it there … but nothing helped, so I switched back to Firefox and hardened it a little bit, will try betterfox next
is a Brave any better?
Technically no.
It's faster, and comes in with a built in CZcams ad blocker.
However it uses chromium as a base and google as default search option.
To my knowledge you can't harden Brave.
Meaning brave is a convenient but not very good at privacy.
Although I would recommend it for IOS devices as it can download CZcams videos for offline viewing
How do I add this to windows
Do to terminal
Input
Sudo apt Firefox-Browser
Im moving to waterfox
Why can't i save this video?
What do you mean?
Can't save in browser?
Can't save locally, on your PC?
You can do both ;-)
@@igorthelight nvm it was youtube's issue, i couldn't add it to a playlist since the youtube shat itself
librewolf on top!!!!
Compared to Chrome, Firefox is a very private browser.
Compared to Brave, yeah Firefox dropped the ball . . . give them credit though, they're developing their own web engine and won't take ideas from Brave for some weird reason.
firefox is getting paid by google tho, its not a very private browser
LibreWolf.
Dude, you really skipped over a lot of stuff as where to and how you are using a DOS looking app to create the .js file.
You can just open the folder in any file explorer and create a new text file called user.js.
@@EricMurphyxyz An upload that's more step by step perhaps run in a VM with Windows OS might be more useful for most users here. As when they open their root folders everything will most likely be in a Win10/11 explorer style format. The majority of users will not be running Linux nor have anything close to the types of menus/GUIs that you have on display in this video so it's natural they would get confused and need more explanation. Just a thought for future videos or an update/reupload of content like this.
@@Jordahni But what is the point of hardening your browser if the OS is spyware ?
The obvious answer to me is to harden the OS. There's plenty you can do to manage Windows. It's not impossible to make it far more secure. @@bp6480
@@bp6480every bit counts.
but how to fix firefox mobile
can I not do this on windows?
You can
You can, but there really isn't much sense in unbloating your browser when your entire OS is bloat.
@@bettercalldelta We can unbloat that too ;-)
@@igorthelight if you're willing to go through the nearly impossible task of debloating windows, you might as well switch to linux
@@Visquint I have Linux Mint Cinnamon and Windows 10. Both are tweaked ;-)
Making firefox hard.
hello
Ok so tell me a open source phone, not a open source android rom, but a open source phone, there aren't any, thats why even the people who care about privacy use a proprietary one
@@Anomajulia ubuntu touch exists.
@@deleteduser8652 Ubuntu touch is not a phone, its an operating system for a phone
Not necessarily
Privacy isn't a battle, it's a war for territory. It's important that you don't cede territory to your enemy, you must make them pay for every inch with blood and struggle. Phones are another battle that must be fought and that battle will come.
I'll say again do not cede anything keep fighting on every front you can get on. Lock down your browser use Linux. By faraday bags for your phone, abstain/delete all social media. Request record deletion from marketing firms. You need to make the collectors give up on you as a target by making it too expensive for them.
HELP NEEDED: i enabled narsil's user.js, i don't know how to disable it and it wiped everything and firefox doesn't work nomrally now. HELP NEEDED
What is that interface where he creates files... Jesuschrist, whenever I try to learn something, it's always a high-end UI, features, just create a guide for old or dumb people like me. 30 sec maybe? Click here, download this, create this, paste this. Done. But no, in order tu understand this guide, I need to watch another 3 guides to know wth is that, lol...
That's Linux lmao this guy is a huge pc nerd like my dad lmao
Yeah the file manager he's using is trash. Man couldn't even use a graphical one which DOES exist on linux.
AI will crack everything!
So........I have my own now lol like China.
If you are saying that your AI is like CCP-occupied China's AI... well, welcome to the 90s, bro.
I realize you are trying to help, but your video is going to strike many people as being of very limited usefulness. One of the main problems is that your target audience appears to be newer users, while your tech level is more appropriate to more confident users. That's an issue. Next, it's clear you're doing this with a Linux OS - something most PC users have probably heard of, but have very little experience. People with a Windows OS will see differences which may be confusing. Furthermore, prior to changing out profiles, you should have demonstrated source, DL, and saving for each profile. There's a lot more than could be better arranged, more easily explained, etc.
Linux was definitely confusing to me because theres so many distros too that make it look different but, I think i still understood the gist of it
I just imagine it being a config file you can download that has extra code to add or remove features
what about, just install TOR?
If it wasn't so slow
@@lactate I know because TOR only prohibited user to access vulnerability page. but are firefox hardened can bypass or manipulating site that went to stolen our data? or just same like TOR?
librewolf is an excellent middle ground here. Don't have to fuck around with the user file and don't have to deal with slow ass tor. does basically the exact same shit as he did in this vid right out of the box.
Mozilla needs to be abandoned all-together. It is no longer fit for purpose.
Greetings from /g/
Say hi to /g/ for me
Delete useless,crashing,tabs and bookmarks forgetting Firefox shit.
We're Sorry
Firefox had a problem and crashed. We’ll try to restore your tabs and windows when it restarts.
To help us diagnose and fix the problem, you can send us a crash report.
Sorry, what? You're having issues with Firefox crashing? With a user.js file or without?
@@EricMurphyxyz What is that question? Do you understand that Firefox is useless shit with or without any file?
Oh, that's just Firefox. Don't worry about that.
main reason i switched from FF to cursed-by-features Opera is that if my laptop goes wrong - my opened windows and tabs will be restored in most cases. practically confirmed. Plus it has extension to export all tones of my junk (bookmarks) in readable format and load up in any browser on any pc.
But, i never used hardened FF, only vanilla bloated garbage with laggy extensions.
maybe I should give a try to a hardened one…