Do you get confused while choosing which site is safe and which can peek in your details? Aren’t those irrelevant advertisements and pop-ups seem annoying when you are browsing peacefully? Ever wanted to stop or skip them completely. So that you can dedicate your precious time to doing what you want instead of wasting your time watching those ads? do you know about security extensions?
To resolve such issues, browser extensions appear to help the user. They are generally referred to as tools or add-ons which are designed to perform specific tasks. Unsurprisingly, there are many extensions, developed for security purposes hence it is really obvious for some people to get confused while choosing them. After going through this list, one can get an idea about their preferences-
Table of contents
1.uBlock Origin :
uBlock Origin is an open-source ad blocker that prevents your browser from connecting to the ad-serving servers. Java, JavaScript, Python are some popular languages that are widely used for software and program development but such languages have also generated spam websites and harmful viruses. Through uBlock Origin, you can choose to restrict any particular domain having a specific script. So, at some point, it acts like No-Script Security Suite.
Since it is a universal content blocker and powerful enough to replace several add-ons at once, it is preferred over Ad Block Plus.
2.Self-destructing cookies :
Deletes the cookies and browser cache automatically when you leave the website or after you close the tabs. It whitelists some websites so that you don’t lose the active logins. Also cleans up any cookies which other security add-ons might have collected by mistake. Public-benefit for the US developed this extension for Firefox.
3.DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials :
Search engines like Google or Bing are very effective in giving us accurate results according to our query but they do gather a lot of information from us and utilize it in many ways. Some of the users are quite concerned about their privacy and hence they wish for a search engine that provides accurate results like Google but lets them control their privacy.
For such users, DuckDuckGo comes out to be the best solution. It doesn’t gather information from others or flash advertisements from historical searches like Google or Facebook do. But it does show the ads which are relevant to that particular search at that time.
4.Privacy Badger :
Add on for Chrome and Firefox, developed by Electronic Frontier Foundation, a reputed digital non-profit digital privacy group. Instead of filter outing the websites like other ad blockers, it mostly focuses on domains that seem to track the user and block them. Hence every user can get their custom block list.
5.Decentraleyes :
Since lots of websites like Amazon web services use Content Delivery Network in short CDNs, it is easier for these networks to track users and their details across different websites. Instead delivers the content locally, this add-on blocks connections to CDNs and works for selected CDNs only.
6.HTTPS everywhere :
This add-on doesn’t block the content but makes sure that the user’s browsing should remain encrypted and private. If it detects the available encrypted version of a page that you are about to visit then it redirects you to that page. It is also created by Electronic Frontier Foundation.
It is available for Firefox, Chrome, Opera and can be installed in Android for Mozilla application.
7.Bloody Vikings :
There are many sites that ask for your email id to access them. Bloody Vikings help by giving such websites a temporary email id and hence you don’t need to disclose your real email id if you are doubtful but curious about that websites.
8.WOT :
Stands for Web of Trust. This add-on distinguishes between spam, unidentified and legal websites by showing their safety ratings. After installation, a green dot (typically the logo of WOT) will appear on the right side of each web result. When you will hover the mouse pointer you will be able to see the security rating in the popped-up box, given by WOT itself. Referring to my personal experience here, you will be able to skip the unsafe sites before even clicking on their links.
9.RoboForm Password Manager :
With RoboForm, you don’t need to worry about forgetting the password. This add-on is developed to store the passwords of multiple accounts, which seems like keeping the bookmarks of different passwords for different accounts. You just have to remember its Master Password to access it. As an advantage, you can log in to any registered account, automatically.
10.Disconnect :
It detects and blocks those invisible websites which are possibly tracking you through your searches and history, hence got the name. It also loads the pages faster and saves bandwidth of up to 39%. This tool was mentioned as the best privacy tool in the New York Times in 2016 and has been the Innovation Award winner.
CONCLUSION :
All of the mentioned extensions are developed by legally identified organizations and they are completely trustworthy. If you wish to go for extensions other than the listed ones, then please install them from official web stores as they go through proper security tests. Unauthorized extensions can be malicious and may harm your computer.
Some extensions are not malicious but they can be dangerous. Such extensions collect relatively a lot of data of the users and its developer can use it to sell that information to the third-party anonymously, to earn luxury swiftly. This misuse of privacy and breaching of commitment is illegal hence such activities should be reported.
Moreover, better not to install too many extensions because they can affect the performance of the computer as well as increase the risk of the potential attack vector, so better to install a few but useful add-ons.
Pay attention to the permissions asked by extension. If new permission occurs by any pre-installed add-on, you should check its validity because in some cases, that extension might have been hacked or sold. Also, reading the permissions can give a good idea about their functionality and performance.
