crimmothy-cromwell

[crimmothy-cromwell]

So You've Finally Switched to Firefox: a Brief Guide to a Some Very Useful Add-Ons.

This post is inspired by two things, the first being the announcement by Google that the long delayed Manifest V3 which will kill robust adblocking will finally roll out in June 2024, and the second, a post written by @sexhaver in response to a question as to what adblockers and extensions they use. It's a very good post with some A+ information, worth checking out.

I love Firefox, I love the degree of customization it offers me as a user. I love how it just works. I love the built in security features like DNS over HTTPS, and I love just how many excellent add-ons are available. It is a better browser than Chrome in every respect, and of the many Chromium based browsers out there, only Vivaldi comes close.

There are probably many people out there who are considering switching over to Firefox but are maybe putting it off because they've got Chrome set up the way they like it with the extensions they want, and doing all that again for Firefox seems like a chore. The Firefox Add-on directory is less expansive than the Chrome Web Store (which in recent years has become overrun with garbage extensions that range from useless to active malware), but there is still a lot of stuff to sift through. That's where this short guide comes in.

I'm presently running 33 add-ons for Firefox and have a number of others installed but disabled. I've used many others. These are my picks, the ones that I consider essential, useful, or in some cases just fun.

Adblocking/Privacy/Security:

uBlock Origin: The single best adblocker available. If you're a power user there are custom lists and scripts you can find to augment it.

Privacy Badger: Not strictly necessary if you're also running uBlock, but it does catch a few trackers uBlock doesn't and replaces potentially useful trackers like comment boxes with click-to-activate placeholders.

Decentraleyes: A supplementary tool meant to run alongside uBlock, prevents certain sites from breaking when tracker requests are denied by serving local bundled files as replacement.

NoScript: The nuclear option for blocking trackers, ads, and even individual elements. Operates from a "trust no one" standpoint, you will need to manually enable elements yourself. Not recommended for casual users, but a fantastic tool for the power user.

Webmail Ad Blocker: The first of many webmail related add-ons from Jason Saward I will be recommending. Removes all advertising from webmail services like Gmail or Yahoo Mail.

Popup Blocker (Strict): Strictly blocks ALL pop up/new tab/new window requests from all website by default unless you manually allow it.

SponsorBlock: Not a fan of listening to your favourite YouTuber read advertisements for shitty products like Raycons or BetterHelp? This skips them automatically.

AdNauseam: I don't use this one but some people prefer it. Rather than straight up blocking ads and trackers, it obfuscates data by injecting noise into the tracker surveillance infrastructure. It clicks EVERY ad, making your data profile incomprehensible.

User-Agent Switcher: Allows you to spoof websites attempting to gather information by altering your browser profile. Want to browse mobile sites on desktop? This allows you to do it.

Bitwarden: Bitwarden has been my choice of password manager since LastPass sold out and made their free tier useless. If you're not using a password manager, why not? All of my passwords look like this: $NHhaduC*q3VhuhD&scICLKjvM4rZK5^c7ID%q5HVJ3@gny I don't know a single one of them and I use a passphrase as a master password supplemented by two-factor-authentication. Everything is filled in automatically. It is the only way to live.

Proton Pass: An open source free password manager from the creators of Proton Mail. I've been considering moving over to it from Bitwarden myself.

Webmail/Google Drive:

Checker Plus for Gmail: Provides desktop notifications for Gmail accounts, supports managing multiple accounts, allows you to check your mail, read, mark as read or delete e-mails at a glance in a pop-up window. An absolutely fabulous add-on from Jason Saward.

Checker Plus for Google Drive: Does for your Google Drive what Checker Plus for Gmail does for your Gmail.

Checker Plus for Google Calendar: The same as the above two only this time for your Google Calendar.

Firefox Relay: An add-on that allows you to generate aliases that forward to your real e-mail address.

Accessibility:

Dark Reader: Gives every page on the internet a customizable Dark Mode for easier reading and eye protection.

Read Aloud: A text to speech add-on that reads pages with the press of a button.

Zoom Page WE: Provides the ability to zoom in on pages in multiple ways: text zoom, full page zoom, auto-fit etc.

Mobile Dyslexic: Not one I use, but I know people who swear by it. Replaces all fonts with a dyslexia friendly type face.

Utility:

ClearURLs: Automatically removes tracking data from URLs.

History Cleaner: Automatically deletes browser history older than a set number of days.

Feedbro RSS Feed Reader: A full standalone reader in your browser, take control of your feed and start using RSS feeds again.

Video Download Helper: A great tool for downloading video files from websites.

Snap Link Plus: Fan of Wikipedia binge holes? Snap Link allows to drag select multiple hyperlink and automatically open all of them in new tabs.

Copy PlainText: Copy any text without formatting.

EPUBReader: Read .epub files from within a browser window.

Tab Stash: A no mess, no fuss way to organize groups of tabs as bookmarks. I use it as a temporary bookmark tool, saving sessions or groups of tabs into "to read" folders.

Tampermonkey/Violentmonkey: Managers for installing and running custom user scripts. Find user scripts on OpenUserJS or Greasy Fork, there's an entire galaxy out there of ingenious and weird custom user scripts out there, go discover it.

Browsing & Searching:

Speed Dial 2: A new tab add-on that gives you easy access to your favourite sites.

Unpaywall: Whenever you come across a scholarly article behind a paywall, this add-on will search through all the free databases for an accessible and non-paywalled version of the text.

Web Archives: Come across a dead page? This add-on gives you a quick way to search for cached versions of the page on the Wayback Machine, Google Cache, Archive.is and others.

Bypass Paywalls: Automatically bypasses the paywalls of major websites like those for the New York Times, New Yorker, the Financial Times, Wired, etc.

Simple Translate: Simple one-click translation of web pages powered by Google Translate.

Search by Image: Reverse search any image via several different search engines: Google Image, TinEye, Yandex, Bing, etc.

Website Specific:

PocketTube: Do you subscribe to too many YouTube channels? Would you like a way to organize them? This is your answer.

Enhancer for Youtube: Provides a suite of options that make using YouTube more pleasant: volume boost, theatre mode, forced quality settings, playback speed and mouse wheel volume control.

Augmented Steam: Improves the experience of using Steam in a browser, see price histories of games, take notes on your wishlist, make wish listed games and new DLC for games you own appear more visible, etc.

Return YouTube Dislikes: Does exactly what it says on the package.

BlueBlocker: Hate seeing the absolute dimmest individuals on the planet have their replies catapulted to the top of the feed because they're desperate to suck off daddy Elon sloppy style? This is for you, it automatically blocks all Blue Checks on Twitter. I've used it to block a cumulative 34,000 Blue Checks.

Batchcamp: Allows for batch downloading on Bandcamp.

XKit Rewritten: If you're on Tumblr and you're not using whichever version of XKit is currently available, I honestly don't know what to say to you. This newest version isn't as fully featured as the old XKit of the golden age, but it's been rewritten from the ground up for speed and utility.

Social Fixer for Facebook: I once accidentally visited Facebook without this add-on enabled and was immediately greeted by the worst, mind annihilating content slop I had ever had the misfortune to come across. Videos titled "he wanted her to get lip fillers and she said no so he had bees sting her lips", and AI photos of broccoli Jesus with 6000 comments all saying "wow". Once I turned it on it was just stuff my dad had posted and updates from the Radio War Nerd group.

BetterTTV: Makes Twitch slightly more bearable.

Well I think that's everything. You don't have to install everything here, or even half of it, but there you go, it's a start.

[crimmothy-cromwell]

Pokemon headcanon that once Absol are studied and people realize they prevent disasters instead of causing them, particularly dangerous workplaces get themselves a workplace Absol and it also decreases accidents.

Construction sites and fishing ships and factories will have one that pretty much just lazes about until it just gets up howling one day and knocks a dude down. They almost never figure out what would have happened but they're always like "yes absol thank you absol I am so grateful to be on the floor right now. Can I offer you a treat in this trying time"

[crimmothy-cromwell]

One of the most important things to unpack and unlearn when you’re part of a white supremacy saturated society (i.e. the global north) and especially if you were raised in an intensified form of it (evangelicism, right wing politics, explicit racism) is the urge to punish and take revenge.

It manifests in our lives all the time and it is inherently destructive. It makes relationships and interactions adversarial for no good reason. It undermines cooperation and good civic order. It worsens some types of crime. It creates trauma, especially in children.

Imagine approaching unexpected or unacceptable behavior from a perspective of "how can this be stopped, and prevented" instead of "you’re going to regret this!”

Imagine dealing with a problem or conflict from the perspective of “how can this be solved in a way that is just and restorative” instead of “the people who caused this are going to pay.”

How much would that change you? How much would that have changed for you?

[crimmothy-cromwell]

The Great Mizutsune 🫧🐟

[crimmothy-cromwell]

New Crow Time 🐦‍⬛🦊🌟

[crimmothy-cromwell]

[crimmothy-cromwell]

I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter was one of the best works of sci-fi of our generation and one of the best works of transgender fiction ever written, and there are world renowned authors who still have successful careers after they publicly assassinated the nascent woman who wrote it. I don't think they should ever know peace.

[crimmothy-cromwell]

My lukewarm take is that one of the greatest privileges of all is the ability to exist as the «default setting», being seen as just a person, and not as a representative of a group of people who share your gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity or cultural/religious background. Which is why the «not all men» pushback against any mention of structural sexism was what it was. Because suddenly people who were used to being the default setting were being made into representatives of their gender, having to prove that they were better than the stereotypes forced upon them. And they did not like that one bit.

[crimmothy-cromwell]

My sister Maryam is an eight-year-old girl. Before the war, she used to go to school and come back to her small home where our father was with us. She dreamed of growing up, learning, and becoming a doctor. But in November 2024, we lost our father in the war and we also lost our brother. Today, Maryam has no father, no home, and no food. She goes to sleep hungry, dreaming only of going back to her classroom and continuing her education like other children. Please help us, so her dream isn’t taken away like her childhood was 🙏🏻💔

[crimmothy-cromwell]

it makes me so mad to see "trans infighting" being presented as a "both sides are culpable" issue when across the board, it goes: transfems being harassed by other trans people -> transfems calling out that harassment as being a product of transmisogyny (either to educate others or simply to vent about being a target of oppression) -> non-transfems getting defensive over that and responding with "erm.... guys.... we need to stop fighting each other ❤️ we are not enemies ❤️ we need to work together, we have bigger problems than this 😌" which 1) presents transmisogyny as not a problem worth addressing just because it comes from other trans people, and 2) presents the pushback against transmisogyny as equally bad to the initial transmisogyny. and that's just when the blame is split 50-50! there are people who act like the transfems in question are at fault completely!

[crimmothy-cromwell]

Today, Australia has found itself on the wrong side of history. The International Court of Justice has handed down a landmark ruling in the most significant climate decision ever issued by a court. As a barrister representing Solomon Islands in the case, I was in the courtroom to hear the judges reshape the global fight for climate justice. The world’s top court resoundingly rejected conservative arguments made by Australia and other high-emitting countries such as the United States, China and Saudi Arabia seeking to justify continued fossil fuel extraction. Instead, the court made a slew of progressive statements – ones that will have far-reaching implications. Under international law, countries are now bound to rapidly reduce their emissions below 1.5 degrees of warming. Failure to do so could result in developed countries like Australia having to pay monetary compensation to developing countries or being required to rebuild infrastructure and restore ecosystems damaged by climate change. This means we could be entering a new era of climate reparations.

I would like to see it.

[crimmothy-cromwell]

Urgent appeal, guys .

Hello friends, thank you from the heart for your previous contribution ever, thank you again because you are present in our lives, and you love to help us and support us in these difficult times, unlike the failing world.

Only you deserve thanks and appreciation with all merit ❤️

The format of this post will be for the third time, I collect 500 dollars every month to pay the rent of the house we live in, many friends know that, thanks to all of you I was able to find a shelter for my family to protect it from the dangers of life, bombing and displacement, and as you know now we are at the end of the month 28/07/2025. The month is about to end soon, and the date of paying the rent costs is approaching, so today I will start with you to collect the rental costs for our safety and the preservation of the shelter we live in.

Important note, friends :

It cannot be underestimated, please take the issue seriously, there will be a specific time to pay these costs and any defect the consequences will be serious for my family and we may be expelled in the streets homeless, so I came to you I hope for your help, and I trust you as happened in the past, I have collected the costs in advance and paid them on time and I hope so this time too, I am sure that you never let me down.

The final payment date will be 04/08/2025.

We only need 500 dollars 🙏.

7800/8300 .

This is a final note:

Now at these times I was also collecting money to buy food in light of this famine, and now I have enough food for 4 days, maybe in the future I need to raise some money also for food, but I will currently focus on rental costs. 🙏❤️ .

Campaign verification link

[crimmothy-cromwell]

The last moments 😮‍💨

[crimmothy-cromwell]

Again: If aid does not enter to Gaza Strip within the next 48 hours — especially baby formula and flour — then prepare yourselves for the largest mass death crime in history.

The famine is over just on TV screens and social media, but here in Gaza it has just begun.

We only see what enters the Gaza Strip, like you, on the Internet and TV screens, but the pictures do not feed our sons and children. They are still hungry and nothing has reached them for a month or more. 147 motors are starving to death so far, most of them children. 71,000 children and adolescents have entered a state of extreme danger due to famine and deliberate starvation by the brutal Zionist occupation.

Yes, Netanyahu lies, lies, and lies. He does not allow anything to enter the warehouses to be delivered to those who deserve it. We are dying of hunger. Please do something. Do not let us die in silence. We only want food and milk for our children and grandchildren. Please share and donate

[crimmothy-cromwell]

[crimmothy-cromwell]

‼️🚨Urgent appeal, very IMPORTANT 🚨‼️

The crossings are closed again‼️

We need your help, the situation is unsuitable and dangerous, we need your help, you are our last hope... Food, clothes, milk, and everything else has become expensive, and we are in the holy month of Ramadan...😭😔🤲

We want food to eat after fasting for 15 hours, nothing is like before... The prices are very expensive...😞

The elderly, our children, us... we all need food, drink, medicine, milk and winter clothes... We live in tents that do not protect us from the cold of winter. 🥶

Please help us... Any donation will save our lives and the lives of our children.🙏😭👶

Campaign Link ⬇️⬇️⬇️

[crimmothy-cromwell]