Created by a non-profit organisation Mozilla, Firefox is an open-source browser that is built keeping your privacy in mind as it offers relatively more transparency and shows user activity through public data reports weekly. Launched in 2004, Firefox has one of the biggest developer communities, which is striving to make Firefox better with add-ons that allow users to customise their browser according to their needs, add-ons offer a more personalised and secure browsing experience.
With over 250 million users worldwide, Firefox makes up 4% of the total Internet traffic. Out of this, one-third of the users have an add-on installed on their browser. Due to this high demand for add-ons, the Firefox add-on library is loaded with applications that enable users to customise their browser, improving the aesthetics and privacy of their browsers.
To help you get the most out of your browsing experience while using Firefox, we have curated a list of 10 add-ons, which will make your experience more rewarding.
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Dark Reader
When it comes to improving the aesthetics of your browsing experience having a dark theme for all the websites you visit goes a long way. This is where dark reader comes into the picture, it forces a dark theme on all the pages you visit. Not only this the add-on allows users to customise brightness, contrast, sepia filter while using the application. It also allows users to create an ignore list for the websites where the dark theme should not be implemented.
There are a lot of extensions which offer this feature, but Dark Reader is open source and is a recommended add-on vetted by Firefox, making it secure for users. Also, using the add-on does not have a noticeable change in website loading time and does not slow down your browser, making it an excellent fit for improving your browsing experience. To make things even better this add-on is available on Firefox for Android as well.
To get Dark Reader for Firefox click here
Facebook Container
Most of us are familiar with the fact that Facebook collects data when we use the application in our browser, but this is only partially true. Facebook also tracks you on the Internet when you are not using the app through its like button and the Facebook pixel.
Every time a user interacts with the like button or the pixel, information is sent to Facebook and linked to your profile. To prevent this cross-platform tracking, you can use the Facebook container. This add-on prevents Facebook from tracking you on the Internet by isolating your Facebook profile in a container and deleting all Facebook cookies and logging you out of Facebook when you close the container.
As this add-on restricts your Facebook profile to a container, embedded Facebook comments and like buttons will not work when opened in tabs other than the Facebook container to prevent cross-platform tracking. In addition to this, websites using Facebook authentication for login might face some issues as well. Using Facebook share buttons on other sites will also open a new container to prevent Facebook from tracking you.
The Facebook container was created by Mozilla Firefox developers keeping user privacy in mind, and the add-on does not store user data. Using this add-on with your browser will help limit the data Facebook can collect from your browsing habits which is always a great thing to have.
To get Facebook Container for Firefox click here
Also read: How to delete saved passwords in Firefox?
Wikiwand
With over 6 million articles, Wikipedia is the largest free encyclopedia providing information to people across the globe. Although the amount of information on Wikipedia is mind bobbling, the design aesthetics of the website have not changed a lot over the years and for some users, this is a big turn off. With Wikiwand you can customise the way Wikipedia looks on your browser.
Wikiwand enables users to change the font size, background colour and personalise the reading experience. It also creates a sidebar of the contents on the article to provide easy access to the content available.
Wikiwand is not a recommended Firefox add-on and its security and privacy have not been audited by Firefox. Its privacy policy mentions that it collects user information but does not share it with third parties. Therefore, it is advised to go through the privacy policy before using the add-on
To get Wikiwand for Firefox click here
Bitwarden
When it comes to password managers there are a lot of them out there, in fact, Firefox has its own password manager, Lockwise is open source and offers a lot of features as well. That being said it has some security vulnerabilities if not configured properly and using your browser to store passwords is not a great idea. Therefore if you are looking for an open-source cross-platform password manager Bitwarden is the one for you.
In terms of compatibility, it can be used as extensions with almost all browsers including Tor browser. Bitwarden also has dedicated apps for both iOS and Androd — allowing you to store all your passwords in one place.
Although Bitwarden might not offer the best user interface when compared to Lastpass, it is not owned by a private equity firm like Logmein. In terms of security, Bitwarden uses AES-256 bit encryption, salted hashing, and PBKDF2 SHA-256 to keep your data secure. Offering unlimited vault space, importing features and sharing options for your passwords in its free version Bitwarden will take care of most of your password security needs.
If you are looking for more security, you can subscribe to Bitwarden’s paid version offering two-step login using Yubikey, U2F, duo along with 1 GB encrypted file storage.
To get Bitwarden for Firefox click here
Also read: 3 ways to block ads on Firefox
Auto tab discard
If you are a serial tab opener and are using a device which is low on memory, using auto tab discard will make life much easier. As the name suggests auto tab discard releases the resources used by an inactive tab after a configurable timespan when multiple tabs are open in your browser.
Doing this increases the speed of your browser as memory resources are used by active tabs and scripts running on inactive tabs do not use your browser’s computational power
Auto tab discard allows you to select the websites which should not be discarded and prevent tabs from getting discarded when they are pinned or media is playing in those tabs.
To get auto tab discard for Firefox click here
Firefox Multi-Account Containers
Retargeted advertisement is all over the Internet and once you put something in your shopping cart, a similar product will keep following you around the Internet for days.
To make retargeting possible, advertisement companies create online profiles of users through third-party cookies and browser fingerprinting. Using these techniques companies can make accurate profiles of users and browser compartmentalisation is one of the only ways to solve this problem.
Although browser compartmentalisation can be effective, using multiple browsers every day can get a little cumbersome. To solve this issue, you can use the multi-account container extension for Firefox.
This add-on allows you to compartmentalise your tabs into different categories by isolating them in different containers. These containers are responsible for managing cookie data and all other information pertaining to the tabs open in them making each profile an independent browsing entity. Due to this, different containers can be used for different tasks like work and shopping so that advertisers cant track you and bombard you with targetted ads.
When a container is closed, all the cookie data stored for the websites running in them is deleted, further increasing the privacy of the add-on. Multi-account containers also allow you to select a profile for particular websites so that they don’t open without the protection of a container. Therefore if you want to enhance the security and privacy of your online presence multi-account containers is a must-have.
This application also helps in organising your tabs as it colour codes all your tabs and helps in easy management as well. The add-on is developed by Mozilla Firefox and does not send any data to Mozilla.
To get Firefox multi account container click here
Also read: How to enable or disable Javascript in Firefox?
Turn off the lights
If you find yourself watching a lot of videos on your web browser and are looking for a more immersive experience, turn off the lights is a must-have add-on for you. Fading the backdrop around your video at the click of a button, turn off the lights helps you focus on the video playing in your browser. Offering support for YouTube, Vimeo, Twitch, Dailymotion and Facebook it is a one-stop solution for a better viewing experience.
Not only this, it allows you to select a particular quality and size for all the videos running on your browser. You can also control the colour and level of dimness in the background of your video playing in your browser to further enhance your experience.
Turn off the lights is open source and is a recommended Firefox extension so you don’t have to worry that someone is keeping tabs on the things you watch on the Internet.
To get turn off the lights for Firefox click here
Grammarly
Let’s face it, no one likes to make grammatical errors in their writing, but if your day involves writing long replies to emails, making no errors is next to impossible. To solve this problem, you could take help from the Grammarly add-on for Firefox.
Grammarly is a writing assistant that takes care of most of the grammatical errors you make on the fly. Powered by advance machine learning algorithms, Grammarly analyses the things you write in your web browser and spots errors and makes suggestions to fix those problems. It offers both free and paid versions, but the free version gets the job done in most cases. Therefore if you want to save yourself the embarrassment of making a grammatical error you should use Grammarly on Firefox.
The Grammarly add-on is not audited by Firefox, and you should go through their privacy policy before getting the same
Click here to get Grammarly for Firefox click here
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Tabliss
Most people like to have a clutter-free new tab on their browser, and Firefox does a good job in making things easily accessible. Although when it comes to customising your browsers homepage there is not much you can do without an add-on.
Tabliss is an add-on, which allows you to create a personalised and aesthetically pleasing homepage for your browser. It allows users to add multiple widgets to their homepage for creating Todo lists, personalised greetings, using customised CSS styles and adding quick links to get to websites faster.
To select a background for your homepage you can select images stored on your computer or select Unsplash to get open source images. You can also add your personal collection on Unsplash to get more personalised backgrounds. There are a lot of add-ons out there which allow you to customise your homepage but Tabliss is fast and secure and does not require any permissions.
To get Tabliss for Firefox click here.
Decentraleyes
Most of the websites you visit on the Internet make use of several different libraries so that they can function properly. Sometimes the libraries these websites use are not hosted with the website and are not available on your system. Therefore for the website to work properly they need to be downloaded to your browser.
To download these libraries, your browser sends a request to content delivery networks which host these libraries for free like Google hosted libraries and jQuery CDN. Every time your browser sends a request to get these libraries it sends your browser headers to the CDN giving it your IP address and other information alongwith it.
Decentraleyes is an add-on for Firefox which stores these libraries locally on your system so requests are not sent to third parties to get libraries increasing your privacy while browsing. Also, as the libraries are locally stored on your system it could speed up your browsing experience as well. If a library cannot be found locally and a request has to be made to a CDN to get it, Decentraleyes removes the metadata from the request and then sends it to the CDN, hence increasing your privacy.
To get Decentraleyes for Firefox click here
