recommended security & privacy add-ons that are minimally-invasive

by dabruro

4 Add-ons in this Collection

ProfileSwitcher by Paolo "Kaosmos"

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Experimental

Rated 4 out of 5 stars 114 reviews

183 users

It adds some options to launch easily other profiles and the Profile Manager.
Collector's Note This add-on lets you switch Firefox user profiles easily, or even run multiple profiles *simultaneously* in separate windows (like the built-in functionality of the Chrome browser). A profile stores all of your preferences, history, bookmarks, add-ons, etc. For example you could use one profile for work, another for banking or web shopping, and a third for general surfing of unfamiliar sites. Keeping these separate can increase your security and privacy, and also allows you to set stricter security settings in the profile where you're most likely to run into a rogue site. An alternative is Switchy, which lets you switch profiles but run only one at a time.

WorldIP - Geo Add-on with Security Features by Alrond

Rated 5 out of 5 stars 124 reviews

20 users

Professional Geo Add-on with security features and advanced network tools. Anti-phishing. Protection against DNS spoofing and fake sites. All DNS records for domain. The real location of web server, country flag, extended information about datacenter
Collector's Note Shows country, city, & other info for current site. If it looks wrong for a familiar site then you could be on a phony/phishing site. This is a more compact alternative to "Website City + Country Info" (or you could use both). Shows a lot of info when you hover over it. Can only be placed in the address/location bar (flag icon only) or in the addon/status bar (chosen information). It can't be dragged to another toolbar (except using an addon like UI Fixer or MarMod 2 to make the entire set of unmovable addon bar items draggable together to another toolbar.) Doesn't show the Organization like Website City... does, though the "Provider" often gives similar information.

Perspectives by perspectives-cmu, dschaefer

Rated 4 out of 5 stars 47 reviews

0 users

Connect securely to https websites by checking certificates with network notaries. See http://www.perspectives-project.org
Collector's Note Just slightly intrusive with a red bar at the top when you visit a site that's identifying itself using a new or different certificate than it usually has been. This bar means you should use caution because you *could* be on a fake or phishing site. So then you could try re-typing the address by hand (rather than getting there via a link), or else check some of the other tools in this collection to see if they indicate a problem. May give quite a few "false positives" but it lets you whitelist them so it won't warn about the same site again. I strongly recommend setting its options so it does NOT "automatically override security errors" -- that setting is too dangerous!

Y U no validate by Marcin Szewczyk

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Experimental

Rated 4 out of 5 stars 7 reviews

1 user

In the "Add Security Exception" dialog makes "Permanently store this exception" checkbox unchecked by default.

Previously known as XULernia. New name seems to be less misleading.
Collector's Note A typical user shouldn't confirm certificate "security exceptions" at all, but if you know what you're doing, at least this way it won't be a permanent exception by default. So you'll get prompted again if you visit the site in the future.

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