How many Adblocking/Privacy extensions are too much?
So as the title mentions, I'm wondering how much is too much?
I am currently using Brave with the setting to:
Aggressively block trackers & ads
Only connect with HTTPS
Block fingerprinting
Block cross-site cookies
In addition to that, I have installed the following extensions:
uBlock Origin
Ghostery
Decentraleyes
DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials
So my question is: Is this overkill? If so, what should/could be removed that may be redundant? I want as much coverage as possible, but not have things bloated.
I get 100% using only ublock in firefox, without configuring either. Note that stacking filters not only reduces performance, but also increases your fingerprint.
only uBlock active: 100% (ghostery still reports trackers)
Vivaldi Max blocking, no add-ons: 53%
Vivaldi max blocking + Ghostery: 93%
All max blocing and on: 100% (same as just uBlock)
uBlock reports 144 blocked
Ghostery reports 53 blocked
Even with only uBlock I get a report of 144 blocked ads (96%) with 150 tests and the site showing 100% score Interesting.
It's a nice test site, but I think I can conclude in my setup that uBlock is the best blocker, but a combination of Vivaldi's settings and uBlock is a minimum. No clue if ghostery ads anything, but the site won't test everything as it's impossible to do that in the ad war we're in.
Please never do this! Read this thread from the developer of uBlock Origin. Using multiple content blockers together like this can and will cause issues, as well as will increase fingerprinting, etc, and there's no gain or benefit at all from doing so.
I would disable Brave's built-in ad/tracker blocking (leave the rest of the Shields' functionality enabled), and would solely use uBlock Origin, and remove the other extensions. (You could even just stick to Brave's built in ad/tracker blocking if you want to, but I just prefer uBlock Origin for its advanced features and compatibility)
As far as Decentraleyes goes, its essentially abandoned. You can use LocalCDN instead if you wish to do so, though its privacy benefits are debated. I mainly use it since I use uBlock Origin in Hard mode (which it complements uBo very nicely in both Medium or Hard Mode), and for the performance boost it gives, but its up to you. Ghostery and DDG Essentials should definitely be removed. (While DDG Essentials isn't only content blocking, its other features are also just completely redundant and unnecessary with Brave)
Brave is trash and its owned by an asshole. I use adblock browser in my phone and Firefox otherwise. Not sure about the owner or Dev or whatever, but it's much better quality for blocking ads.
An answer to the more pertinent question of how much is too much, however? None. There's no such thing as too much ad blocking.
Never mind the American politics nonsense, Brave has a history of slightly dodgy behaviour. Replacing websites ads with their own, keeping donations meant for creators, hijacking referral links and adding in their own, a lot of cryptocurrency shenanigans, and that's just what's on Wikipedia!
I agree with you, that's irrelevant. What's not irrelevant is that it's chromium as in based on chrome, the browser trying to add drm to internet pages. Please use Firefox instead
Given that the US has almost zero privacy legislation, the politics of the owner/maker often hints at decisions that eventually make it into the software. Many of the reasons to avoid chrome and chromium are similar to this, though not about a specific person but about the values that google holds in fucking over standards. We see this reflected in some of the decisions of say social media platforms (even "free-as-in-beer" ones) and many companies.
In many cases, you're still giving them money and/or power to continue fucking up open standards.
Yes for the browser i agree, sadly apps have trackers and ads too. A dns can be useful if it's system wide for all that stuff. Nextdns, adguard, rethinkdns or decloudus comes to mind
tor using ublock origin would be new to me. do you mean they now ship it by default or do you mean that you can install it like a regular firefox extension?
You can have what Brave does except block ads/trackers, which uBO can cover anyway, but on Firefox or Librewolf instead. For extensions, ditch Ghostery.
Ghostery used to sell (or just send back) user data to advertisers. While it was opt-in, that isn’t really a good look for a privacy tool. I stopped using it when that news broke out long ago, but I think now they are also showing ads of their own(?). Either way, uBO does almost everything now. I have Decentraleyes too, along with ClearURLs, and Privacy Badger (which supposedly is redundant to uBO now too).
I don't use it just because I'm not a fan of how chromium browsers work. They have had some controversies too around their crypto stuff and other things, but I'm not too familiar with them.
I've tested a few browsers using Eff's Cover Your Tracks website. The best is TOR, but Brave with no extensions is second, it said it provided a randomized fingerprint. Tried it with Firefox with uBlock and it said my comp had a unique fingerprint. Mullvad browser faired slighty better, cant recall the score, but at least it wasn't unique. I tried it with Librewolf also with a load of extensions and it was a poor score as well. So, imo, you don't need extensions with Brave. I think my settings are the same as yours.
The only privacy add-on you need is uBlock Origin with script blocking and advanced mode enabled, installed on Firefox. Better yet, LibreWolf, although a few websites will be broken by LibreWolf. There are no other privacy add-ons that are necessary beyond uBlock Origin.
I mean, you can install them if you want, but they won't do anything.
pihole by itself does not remove all the ads and trackers, just ones that come from different hostnames than the site being accessed--which can be blocked by dns.