How to make Firefox sane and private

Nowadays Firefox is the only good browser.

Apple ruined Safari by moving extensions into AppStore’s walled garden, the company behind Brave has a reputation for questionable decisions, and all other browsers are just Chrome (spyware).

Being non-chrome and non-apple comes with a price — Firefox is kinda quirky, and you still have some work to do for more privacy.

Here are my instructions for sane and private Firefox.

Flags

Enter about:config in the search bar. Through the search, find the necessary settings and set the desired values. Here’s what needs to be changed and why:

• extensions.pocket.enabled = false — removes Pocket integration.
• dom.private-attribution.submission.enabled — removes ad activity reports
• network.captive-portal-service.enabled = false and browser.selfsupport.url = false — disables browser usage data sending.
• apz.allow_zooming = true — enables “pinch to zoom” (like in Chrome or Safari).
• general.smoothScroll.mouseWheel.durationMaxMS = 200 — sets scrolling speed as in Chrome.

Extensions for better privacy

• Disable WebRTC — disables WebRTC by default, allowing it to be enabled when needed (like where audio-video communication is present). WebRTC can reveal your IP address even through VPN.
• User-Agent Switcher — automatically switches the User-Agent. Turn on random mode to prevent fingerprinting.
• Clear URLs — clears URLs of trackers.
• uBlock Origin — an internet-era antivirus.
• Privacy Badger — cleans up trackers that uBlock missed.
• HTTPS Everywhere — forces websites to use encrypted HTTPS instead of unencrypted HTTP.
• Decentraleyes — protects against tracking via CDNs.
• Facebook Container — isolates Meta products from other browser tabs.

Separate bookmarks and passwords from the browser

Switching from one browser to another is a good time to realize that storing passwords and bookmarks in a browser is a bad idea. Upon logging in, Firefox will try to offer its synchronization service — I recommend refusing it.

Next, you need to turn off password saving. To do this, go to Preferences → Privacy and Security → Logins and Passwords.

For bookmark synchronization, I recommend Raindrop.io, and for passwords, Bitwarden. Both are decent, free of charge, and work on all devices and browsers.