So You've Finally Switched To Firefox: A Brief Guide To A Some Very Useful Add-Ons.
So You've Finally Switched to Firefox: a Brief Guide to a Some Very Useful Add-Ons.
This post is inspired by two things, the first being the announcement by Google that the long delayed Manifest V3 which will kill robust adblocking will finally roll out in June 2024, and the second, a post written by @sexhaver in response to a question as to what adblockers and extensions they use. It's a very good post with some A+ information, worth checking out.
I love Firefox, I love the degree of customization it offers me as a user. I love how it just works. I love the built in security features like DNS over HTTPS, and I love just how many excellent add-ons are available. It is a better browser than Chrome in every respect, and of the many Chromium based browsers out there, only Vivaldi comes close.
There are probably many people out there who are considering switching over to Firefox but are maybe putting it off because they've got Chrome set up the way they like it with the extensions they want, and doing all that again for Firefox seems like a chore. The Firefox Add-on directory is less expansive than the Chrome Web Store (which in recent years has become overrun with garbage extensions that range from useless to active malware), but there is still a lot of stuff to sift through. That's where this short guide comes in.
I'm presently running 33 add-ons for Firefox and have a number of others installed but disabled. I've used many others. These are my picks, the ones that I consider essential, useful, or in some cases just fun.
Adblocking/Privacy/Security:
uBlock Origin: The single best adblocker available. If you're a power user there are custom lists and scripts you can find to augment it.
Privacy Badger: Not strictly necessary if you're also running uBlock, but it does catch a few trackers uBlock doesn't and replaces potentially useful trackers like comment boxes with click-to-activate placeholders.
Decentraleyes: A supplementary tool meant to run alongside uBlock, prevents certain sites from breaking when tracker requests are denied by serving local bundled files as replacement.
NoScript: The nuclear option for blocking trackers, ads, and even individual elements. Operates from a "trust no one" standpoint, you will need to manually enable elements yourself. Not recommended for casual users, but a fantastic tool for the power user.
Webmail Ad Blocker: The first of many webmail related add-ons from Jason Saward I will be recommending. Removes all advertising from webmail services like Gmail or Yahoo Mail.
Popup Blocker (Strict): Strictly blocks ALL pop up/new tab/new window requests from all website by default unless you manually allow it.
SponsorBlock: Not a fan of listening to your favourite YouTuber read advertisements for shitty products like Raycons or BetterHelp? This skips them automatically.
AdNauseam: I don't use this one but some people prefer it. Rather than straight up blocking ads and trackers, it obfuscates data by injecting noise into the tracker surveillance infrastructure. It clicks EVERY ad, making your data profile incomprehensible.
User-Agent Switcher: Allows you to spoof websites attempting to gather information by altering your browser profile. Want to browse mobile sites on desktop? This allows you to do it.
Bitwarden: Bitwarden has been my choice of password manager since LastPass sold out and made their free tier useless. If you're not using a password manager, why not? All of my passwords look like this: $NHhaduC*q3VhuhD&scICLKjvM4rZK5^c7ID%q5HVJ3@gny I don't know a single one of them and I use a passphrase as a master password supplemented by two-factor-authentication. Everything is filled in automatically. It is the only way to live.
Proton Pass: An open source free password manager from the creators of Proton Mail. I've been considering moving over to it from Bitwarden myself.
Webmail/Google Drive:
Checker Plus for Gmail: Provides desktop notifications for Gmail accounts, supports managing multiple accounts, allows you to check your mail, read, mark as read or delete e-mails at a glance in a pop-up window. An absolutely fabulous add-on from Jason Saward.
Checker Plus for Google Drive: Does for your Google Drive what Checker Plus for Gmail does for your Gmail.
Checker Plus for Google Calendar: The same as the above two only this time for your Google Calendar.
Firefox Relay: An add-on that allows you to generate aliases that forward to your real e-mail address.
Accessibility:
Dark Reader: Gives every page on the internet a customizable Dark Mode for easier reading and eye protection.
Read Aloud: A text to speech add-on that reads pages with the press of a button.
Zoom Page WE: Provides the ability to zoom in on pages in multiple ways: text zoom, full page zoom, auto-fit etc.
Mobile Dyslexic: Not one I use, but I know people who swear by it. Replaces all fonts with a dyslexia friendly type face.
Utility:
ClearURLs: Automatically removes tracking data from URLs.
History Cleaner: Automatically deletes browser history older than a set number of days.
Feedbro RSS Feed Reader: A full standalone reader in your browser, take control of your feed and start using RSS feeds again.
Video Download Helper: A great tool for downloading video files from websites.
Snap Link Plus: Fan of Wikipedia binge holes? Snap Link allows to drag select multiple hyperlink and automatically open all of them in new tabs.
Copy PlainText: Copy any text without formatting.
EPUBReader: Read .epub files from within a browser window.
Tab Stash: A no mess, no fuss way to organize groups of tabs as bookmarks. I use it as a temporary bookmark tool, saving sessions or groups of tabs into "to read" folders.
Tampermonkey/Violentmonkey: Managers for installing and running custom user scripts. Find user scripts on OpenUserJS or Greasy Fork, there's an entire galaxy out there of ingenious and weird custom user scripts out there, go discover it.
Browsing & Searching:
Speed Dial 2: A new tab add-on that gives you easy access to your favourite sites.
Unpaywall: Whenever you come across a scholarly article behind a paywall, this add-on will search through all the free databases for an accessible and non-paywalled version of the text.
Web Archives: Come across a dead page? This add-on gives you a quick way to search for cached versions of the page on the Wayback Machine, Google Cache, Archive.is and others.
Bypass Paywalls: Automatically bypasses the paywalls of major websites like those for the New York Times, New Yorker, the Financial Times, Wired, etc.
Simple Translate: Simple one-click translation of web pages powered by Google Translate.
Search by Image: Reverse search any image via several different search engines: Google Image, TinEye, Yandex, Bing, etc.
Website Specific:
PocketTube: Do you subscribe to too many YouTube channels? Would you like a way to organize them? This is your answer.
Enhancer for Youtube: Provides a suite of options that make using YouTube more pleasant: volume boost, theatre mode, forced quality settings, playback speed and mouse wheel volume control.
Augmented Steam: Improves the experience of using Steam in a browser, see price histories of games, take notes on your wishlist, make wish listed games and new DLC for games you own appear more visible, etc.
Return YouTube Dislikes: Does exactly what it says on the package.
BlueBlocker: Hate seeing the absolute dimmest individuals on the planet have their replies catapulted to the top of the feed because they're desperate to suck off daddy Elon sloppy style? This is for you, it automatically blocks all Blue Checks on Twitter. I've used it to block a cumulative 34,000 Blue Checks.
Batchcamp: Allows for batch downloading on Bandcamp.
XKit Rewritten: If you're on Tumblr and you're not using whichever version of XKit is currently available, I honestly don't know what to say to you. This newest version isn't as fully featured as the old XKit of the golden age, but it's been rewritten from the ground up for speed and utility.
Social Fixer for Facebook: I once accidentally visited Facebook without this add-on enabled and was immediately greeted by the worst, mind annihilating content slop I had ever had the misfortune to come across. Videos titled "he wanted her to get lip fillers and she said no so he had bees sting her lips", and AI photos of broccoli Jesus with 6000 comments all saying "wow". Once I turned it on it was just stuff my dad had posted and updates from the Radio War Nerd group.
BetterTTV: Makes Twitch slightly more bearable.
Well I think that's everything. You don't have to install everything here, or even half of it, but there you go, it's a start.
More Posts from Cardinalfandom and Others
We're f-f-flying in a CAR Ron, Owl, Harry and his SCAR Pass the mic right over to THE WHOMPING WILLOW
i’ve said in vfdiscord earlier about how the conclusions in Sub-file B in file under: 13 suspicious incidents that don’t have matching counter parts from Sub-file One might possibly be Jacques’ or Kit’s mission / cases / incidents encountered misfiled because of someone maybe someone confused those with Lemony’s cases because of the same last name.
so after getting home today i reread some and i have. some more thoughts. like the misfilings could be of various reasons and not just last name Snicket, though some of them still might be.
take for example:
museum authorities??? well we all knew one person who was hanging around museum during the atwq times. there’s nothing saying it’s the same museum as the one kit was plotting to steal from (implying it’s in The City), but there’s also nothing directly saying that the mine voices was from the same mine Marguerite worked at (implying it’s at SBTS)
anyway more under cut because this got long
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Index of Frightful Friday Posts 101–200
Young Goodman Brown | Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Devil and Daniel Webster | Washington Irving
The Cigarette Case | Oliver Onions
The Readjustment | Mary Austin
No. 5 Branch Line: The Engineer | Amelia Edwards
The Easter Egg | Saki
The Lottery | Shirley Jackson
The Secret of Kralitz | Henry Knutter
Mother of Toads | Clark Ashton Smith
Old Garfield’s Heart | Robert E. Howard
The Outsider | H.P. Lovecraft
The Ghosts | Lord Dunsany
The Man-Eating Tree | Phil Robinson
The Reckoning | Lafcadio Hearn
Wild Swimming | Elodie Harper
Neighbourhood Watch | Greg Egan
The Bus-Conductor | E.F. Benson
The Nightmare Room | Arthur Conan Doyle
The Devil of the Marsh | H.B. Marriott-Watson
Weeds | Stephen King
Djinn and Bitters | Harold Lawlor
A Night of Horror | Dick Donovan (aka James Edward Preston Muddock)
Leiningen Versus the Ants | Carl Stephenson
The Vampire of Croglin Grange | Augustus Hare
Lost Hearts | M.R. James
Round the Fire | Catherine Crowe
The Music of Erich Zann | H.P. Lovecraft
Sir Dominick’s Bargain | J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Pigeons from Hell | Robert E. Howard
The Medici Boots | Pearl Norton Swet
The Toll-House | W.W. Jacobs
Pride & Prometheus | John Kessel
The Shadowy Third | Ellen Glasgow
Was It a Dream? | Guy de Maupassant
The Open Door | Margaret Oliphant
Three Skeleton Key | George G. Toudouze
Man-Size in Marble | Edith Nesbit
Silent Snow, Secret Snow | Conrad Aiken
A Sound of Thunder | Ray Bradbury
The Gateway of the Monster | William Hope Hodgson
Ofodile | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Repossession | Lionel Shriver
Light and Space | Ned Beauman
Stairs | Penelope Lively
Dark Christmas | Jeanette Winterson
How Fear Departed the Long Gallery | E.F. Benson
Thurnley Abbey | Perceval Landon
To Be Read at Dusk | Charles Dickens
The Tractate Middoth | M.R. James
The Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nothing But The Truth | Rhoda Broughton
Lost in a Pyramid, or the Mummy’s Curse | Louisa May Alcott
The Sumach | Ulrich Dabney
The Pavilion | Edith Nesbit
The Flowering of the Strange Orchid | H.G. Wells
At the Dip of the Road | Mary Louisa Molesworth
At Chrighton Abbey | Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Banshees and Warnings | Lady Gregory
At the End of the Corridor | Evangeline Walton
The Tree’s Wife | Mary Elizabeth Counselman
Pickman’s Model | H.P. Lovecraft
The Dead Man | Fritz Leiber
The Canal | Everil Worrell
The Return of the Sorcerer | Clark Ashton Smith
The Child That Went with the Fairies | J. Sheridan Le Fanu
The Piano Next Door | Elia W. Peattie
The Miniature | J.Y. Akerman
The American’s Tale | Arthur Conan Doyle
The Death’s Head | Friedrich Laun
The Spectre-Barber | Johann Karl August Musäus
The Family Portraits | Johann August Apel
The Storm | Sarah Elizabeth Utterson
The Invisible Girl | Mary Shelley
The Botathen Ghost | R.S. Hawker
The Whisperers | Algernon Blackwood
The Curse of Vasartas | Eva Henry
The Lost Door | Dorothy Quick
Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook | M.R. James
The Mysterious Mummy | Sax Rohmer
Dagon | H.P. Lovecraft
Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter | J. Sheridan Le Fanu
The Poor Ghost | Christina Rossetti
The Night Wire | H.F. Arnold
Old Aeson | Arthur Quiller-Couch
The Feather Pillow | Horacio Quiroga
Fingers of a Hand | H.D. Everett
The Tale of Satampra Zeiros | Clark Ashton Smith
The Story of Baelbrow | Kate & Hesketh Prichard
The Jelly-Fish | David H. Keller
The Ebony Frame | Edith Nesbit
The Man of Science | Jerome K. Jerome
The Open Window | Saki
The Hall Bedroom | Mary Wilkins Freeman
No. 252 Rue M. le Prince | Ralph Adams Cram
The Weird Violin | Anonymous
The Ghost’s Summons | Ada Buisson
The Doll’s Ghost | F. Marion Crawford
The Canterville Ghost | Oscar Wilde
The Tapestried Chamber | Sir Walter Scott
The Gorgon’s Head | Edith Bacon
The Empty House | Algernon Blackwood
For the first one hundred stories, please visit: Index of Frightful Friday Posts 1–100
I was getting pretty fed up with links and generators with very general and overused weapons and superpowers and what have you for characters so:
Here is a page for premodern weapons, broken down into a ton of subcategories, with the weapon’s region of origin.
Here is a page of medieval weapons.
Here is a page of just about every conceived superpower.
Here is a page for legendary creatures and their regions of origin.
Here are some gemstones.
Here is a bunch of Greek legends, including monsters, gods, nymphs, heroes, and so on.
Here is a website with a ton of (legally attained, don’t worry) information about the black market.
Here is a website with information about forensic science and cases of death. Discretion advised.
Here is every religion in the world.
Here is every language in the world.
Here are methods of torture. Discretion advised.
Here are descriptions of the various methods used for the death penalty. Discretion advised.
Here are poisonous plants.
Here are plants in general.
Feel free to add more to this!
can we as a society make puppetry cool again. like lets make it trendy. Mainstream. more people should get into doing it and more people should appreciate it. puppetry requires craftsmanship and charisma and physical acting and vocal performance!! you can’t get that from ai. it has a charm to it that neither 2D nor cg animation has. Have you ever watched a puppetry performance and realized you were genuinely convinced that the puppet was getting into bed or eating something or giving a hug that you wholly forgot there was some guy’s arm in there.
isn’t it lovely. to make a funny little guy to tell stories with. is that not so human of us. it’s such a lovely art form. I love you puppets I love you muppets I love you marionettes I love you handmade sock puppets I love you paper bags with googley eyes I love you armatures I love you I love you I love you!!!!!
Resources For Writing Deaf, Mute, or Blind Characters
Despite the fact that I am not deaf, mute, or blind myself, one of the most common questions I receive is how to portray characters with these disabilities in fiction.
As such, I’ve compiled the resources I’ve accumulated (from real life Deaf, mute, or blind people) into a handy masterlist.
Deaf Characters:
Deaf characters masterpost
Deaf dialogue thread
Dialogue with signing characters (also applies to mute characters.)
A Deaf author’s advice on deaf characters
Dialogue between Deaf characters
“The Month I Suddenly Went Deaf”
What It’s Like Going Deaf In Your Thirties
9 Women Share What It Feels Like To Lose Your Hearing
What It’s Like Being a Deaf Teenager (video)
Parenting With Sign Language (video)
Deaf Teen Talks About Losing His Hearing To Meningitis (video)
Things Not To Say To A Deaf Person (video)
Deaf Kids Shining in High School (video)
I recently discovered the youtube channel of the amazing Jessica Kellgren-Fozard, a vintage-loving, lesbian, happily married queen, who talks about her deafness in many of her videos. I can’t recommend her enough.
Black Deaf Culture Through the Lens of Black Deaf History
Black Deaf History
Video: How to Sign in BASL (Black American Sign Language)
Mute Characters
Life as a Mute
My Silent Summer: Life as a Mute
What It’s Like Being Mute
21 People Reveal What It’s Really Like To Be Mute
I am a 20 year old Mute, ask me anything at all!
Blind Characters:
Things Not To Say To A Blind Person (video)
What It’s Like to Go Blind (video)
The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Blind Characters.
@referenceforwriters masterpost of resources for writing/playing blind characters.
The youtube channel of the wonderful Tommy Edison, a man blind from birth with great insight into the depiction of blind people and their lives.
As does Molly Burke, “a typical sushi and makeup loving millennial girl who just so happens to be blind.”
And Alyssa Irene, who talks about her experience going blind and life as a blind person.
An Absolute Write thread on the depiction of blind characters, with lots of different viewpoints and some great tips.
And finally, this short, handy masterpost of resources for writing blind characters.
Characters Who Are Blind in One Eye
4 Ways Life Looks Shockingly Different With One Eye
Learning to Live With One Eye
Adapting to the Loss of an Eye
Adapting to Eye Loss and Monocular Vision
Monocular Depth Perception
Deaf-Blind Characters
What Is It Like To Be Deafblind?
Going Deaf and Blind in a City of Noise and Lights
Deaf and Blind by 30
Sarita is Blind, Deaf, and Employed (video)
Deaf and Blind: Being Me (video)
Born Deaf and Blind, This Eritrean American Graduated Harvard Law School (video)
A Day of a Deaf Blind Person
Lesser Known Things About Being Deafblind
How the Deaf-Blind Communicate
Early Interactions With Children Who Are Deaf-Blind
Raising a DeafBlind Baby
If you have any more resources to add, let me know! I’ll be adding to this post as I find more resources.
I hope this helps, and happy writing! <3
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