I checked my settings while on vpn on the website panopticlick and while I'm mostly good, my browser fingerprint is "unique".
not that I have anything to hide but I like being private. It's supposed to be a right in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave...
I tried turning off javascript through about:config but it just breaks sites-like this one.
Thanks. I'm getting a bit leery of extensions because some are gathering data like crazy. I'll see if I can find one that has a decent and honest privacy policy
uMatrix will help, but the learning curve is steep and the effort to get it working is large. But, once you have it working - you can save your settings, export them, use them elsewhere, etc...
Basically, it's like an old-school software firewall - but made specifically for your browser. It will take work to configure it for your favorite sites. After that, you'll block (by default) most fingerprinting techniques. And, it's pretty much on a site-by-site basis... So, you gotta configure it until you're reasonably close to done and then you hardly ever touch it again - except when you visit new sites.
Once the work is done, it's not bad. Also, sharing rules is pointless, 'cause everyone visits different sites and has different needs from those sites. It's a great idea, just a bitch to set up. Just keep configuring the sites as you encounter them and eventually you stop having to do it. Not gonna lie, it's a pain in the ass.
Thanks much. I've been using UMatrix for about two years and swear by it and UBlock origins. I'm probably not using them as effectively as I could or should because I don't know how to write commands (I'm thinking the "I'm an advanced user option").
I definitely think both add-ons are well worth the time and effort to learn and tweak properly. I rarely set them to remember site settings though, that's where I probably run into a bit of trouble- or more inconvenience, really.
If you set the global scope rules then you can block more by default. It's in the upper left, near where the URL is, when you open the menu. The reality is that you'll never have true anonymity online. You can make it more difficult, but even using tools like Tor don't make one completely anonymous - given things like "timing attacks."
I tried Tor a few years ago and found the endless updates too annoying to deal with. I'm thinking there is little a person can do now days to maintain privacy...I'll look at the global scope rules more carefully - thanks for pointing this out.
There was a open source browser called "Drooble" or Dooble" that looked amazing and seemed to have a lot of privacy built in. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to render a page and sadly, it's not supported anymore. Too bad too because it had real potential
Yes there's extensions for that which send out false information based on default settings of popular devices. Those might lower your user experience though.