Fight trackers, dodge phishing, and even enlist the help of Bloody Vikings. The internet is a minefield when it comes to privacy and security. Most we
Fight trackers, dodge phishing, and even enlist the help of Bloody Vikings. The internet is a minefield when it comes to privacy and security. Most websites track your browsing habits to create a profile that they may exploit to bombard you with ads, and the more shady ones may even try to gain access to your digital accounts or defraud you of money. But don’t get too worked up. Aside from the security and privacy features built into Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Safari, or whichever browser you like, there are a number of extensions that can help you avoid falling victim to a scam or disclosing more personal information than you wish.
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KeeperFill
Of course, keeping your passwords close to your chest is essential for online security, and Keeper’s browser extension is one of the best at doing just that. It eliminates the hassle of remembering many passwords by putting everything in a digital vault behind a single safe master password. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: utilising a password manager is essential. KeeperFill is available for download for free on Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, and Opera.
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Emsisoft Browser Security
Emsisoft is one of the most trusted names in security software, and its browser extension compares the sites you visit to a long list of potentially dangerous sites, protecting you from phishing scams, malware attacks, and other threats—you’ll even get a warning if you’re about to visit an unsafe page. There are no complicated configurations or settings windows to deal with, and you can even assist other users by reporting problematic websites. Emsisoft Browser Security is a free browser security programme for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and other Chromium-based browsers such as Opera.
Privacy Badger
Privacy Badger, created by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is in line with the EFF’s aim of protecting your privacy and data rights when you’re online. This add-on shows you which trackers are placed on each site you visit and provides a sophisticated sliding scale of script-blocking that allows you to prevent sites from spying on you without affecting any critical page features or layouts. At one extreme, it may prevent all interactive elements on a page from loading—from a map embed to a video player—while at the other, it may allow everything but third-party trackers that follow your actions across many sites. Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Opera all have free versions of Privacy Badger.
Origin of uBlock
Get uBlock Origin up and running in your browser if you think the modern web has become an ad-infested mess—it prevents obtrusive advertising, auto-playing media, malware-hosting sites, and tracking scripts while also protecting your privacy and allowing pages to load faster. While this application is easy to install and use, you can go into the settings to whitelist sites you know and trust. For Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Chromium-based browsers like Opera, uBlock Origin is free.
Avast Online Security is a software programme that protects you online.
Avast is a well-known and well-respected security software company, and this easy add-on will give you some piece of mind when surfing the web. It uses its database of known dangers and bad actors to score websites for safety, so you know you’re not being fooled into a phishing scam or being forced-fed malware. If you visit a site that is known to be dangerous, a warning will appear before the page loads. These ranks will also appear alongside Google and Bing search results, so you’ll know which ones are safe to click. Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera, and Avast Secure Browser are all free to use with Avast Online Security.
Ghostery
Ghostery attempts to expose how aggressively marketers try to monitor you across various sites and, when required, to stop them. This plugin displays a list of tracking scripts and technologies on each web page you visit, disabling the most ubiquitous trackers that track your behaviour across numerous sites. This, in turn, reduces the information that pages may gather about you while also speeding up your browsing (because less code is being loaded and processed). You can exempt a site from Ghostery’s script-blocking if you trust it. For Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, and Opera, Ghostery is available for free.
Bloody Vikings
Bloody Vikings is a Firefox addon that is both entertaining and functional. When you sign up for a new site or app, this add-on uses your choice of temporary email services (10MinuteMail or MailCatch, for example) to provide you with a throwaway email address. You can then try it out without disclosing your real email address. It’s all really smooth: Bloody Vikings generates a fictitious email address for you and opens a temporary mailbox in the background so you can validate a registration or perform some other one-time duty. Firefox users can play Bloody Vikings for free.
HTTPS with Intelligence
Most websites now use HTTPS, which is a more secure, encrypted method of connecting to them, but for those that don’t, Smart HTTPS is available to provide an extra layer of protection. It’ll force HTTPS where it’s available and fall back to HTTP where it’s not, so your browsing isn’t hampered. You can exclude specific sites from the add-HTTPS on’s scan if necessary, and it will remember the sites it has visited so it doesn’t have to check them again. Simple and practical.
Chrome, Opera, Firefox, and Edge are all free to use with Smart HTTPS.
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History Cleaner
Even if no one else has access to it, storing a lifetime’s worth of browser history isn’t a good idea in terms of security and privacy—always there’s the risk of it being exposed. This simple add-on automatically deletes your Firefox browsing history after a set number of days, so you don’t have to. Other browsers don’t have History Cleaner, however Chrome has Super History & Cache Cleaner, which does a similar job. For Firefox, History Cleaner is available for free.
NoScript is a scripting language (Chrome, Firefox)
Website scripts provide some beneficial features, such as video player widgets, but they can also be used to track your browsing and even install malware. NoScript, for example, disables certain bits of code by default before allowing you to whitelist sites that require scripts (on your banking site, for example, and other sites you trust). NoScript provides a full overview of the scripts it is blocking for each page you visit.
NoScript is available for free in Chrome, Firefox, and other Chromium-based browsers, as well as in the Tor Browser.
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