30DISC – Day 10 – Firefox Security Add-Ons

Making Good Even Better.

Today’s challenge – Firefox Security Add-Ons – Direct Link to Guide Page

33.3% done! Man this is going quick

One of the great advantages of Firefox (and Chrome) is the number of third-party add-ons available to install. Add-ons give you additional features which don’t come as standard as part of the browser. There’s a vast array of add-ons, some more useful than others (although there is certainly a case for Bork Bork Bork!).

Just has recommended three for today’s challenge, I have a feeling that there will be a few more to come, given the way he gushes over others in his podcast. The three here today are both pretty straightforward in their application, but also quite poweful in enhancing your privacy and security.

“Better Privacy” prevents websites from tracking you using flash cookies. These cookies are better than your average cookie, in that they allow more detailed tracking information to be collected, stored and returned to the website.

“Disconnect” promises to do what we all want from a web browser – to speed up loading pages. This is particularly relevant here in Australia with our outrageously substandard broadband Internet connections. An add-on that increases privacy and speeds up browsing – yes please!

“HTTPS Everywhere” – you might recognise the letters “https”. Basically it means that the connection to that webpage is encryted. Normally this is done when you log into a website such as your internet banking. Which is great, but what many sites do is revert to an unencrypted connection after you have logged in. HTTPS Everywhere tries to force the website to continue to use the encrypted connection whereever you navigate on that website, making you intereactions with the site much more secure.

The installation of these add-ons was pretty easy (well for the other participants), and none of our other participants even noticed anything had changed. Nice and easy for them today. Because I’m running the current beta version of the upcoming Firefox, only Disconnect would install for me. I’ll have to wait until support for the new browser catches up.

 

Previous Days Here:
Day 0 – Introduction to the Team
Day 1 – Installing Operating System and Application Updates
Day 2 – Set Up A Standard User Account
Day 3 – Review Privacy Settings
Day 4 – Setup Private & Secure Email
Days 5&6 – Weekend Project #1
Day 7 – Install a Password Manager
Day 8 – Change Your Passwords
Day 9 – Browser Security

Written by Geoffrey

2 comments to “30DISC – Day 10 – Firefox Security Add-Ons”
  1. Pingback: Social Media Evidence Experts | 30DISC – Day 14 – Virtual Private Network

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