10+ Best Firefox Addons for Security and Privacy

Security and privacy are some of the major concerns these days while choosing a web browser to use. So much so that all the major players in the “browser wars” are providing or developing a private browsing mode.

Firefox with the myraid of add-ons that it has to offer is never far from action. Here are some of the top Firefox addons that you should install for better privacy and security

Stealther

Stealther - Stealther provides you with what can be called a private browsing mode. It allows you to browse the web without leaving any trace. The addon disables browsing history, cookies, cache, recent tabs and sending of referrer header for as long as you want. It’s lot like the incognito mode in Google chrome. Distrust is another similar addon that allows you to acheive the similar results.

Close ‘n’ Forget

Close ‘n’ Forget - While Stealther and Distrust require you to turn on private browsing explicitly, what if you happen to stumble upon a site that you wished you would have known to turn on the private browsing mode for? Close ‘n’ Forget comes to your rescue. Just hit the special close button once you are finished and that site will be deleted from history and cookies cleared as if you had never visited the site.

WOT

WOT - We all know about the threats which surfers suffer like viruses, spywares, adware, malicious spam, phishing etc., but here Web of Trust comes to rescue. WOT warns you about risky websites that try to scam surfers before they enter in them using a safety rating of 21 million websites, WOT combines evidence collected from multiple sources. Not only does it help surfers but also sets a protection level for children by blocking inappropriate content.

NoScript

NoScript - An absolute must have security addon for your browser. NoScript gives you the power to specify the sites you trust and only those sites will be allowed to run active content like Javascript, Java code and other executable code. The addon thus protects you from cross-site scripting attacks and clickjacking attacks.

Panic

Panic - Panic allows you to instantly close all the open tabs and replace it with another tab of your choice. So next time while you are on facebook and your boss drops to check in just hit Alt + ` and you would be taken to predefined page in no time.

hideBad

hideBad - Hides bad things! Saves all the tabs, closes them and opens your home page. Allows you to clear history, cookies, cache and passwords at your will and then restore them later.

TabRenamizer / Page Title Eraser

TabRenamizer and Page Title Eraser - Do your tabs give you away? Why not change their names with TabRenamizer or remove the names all together with Page Title Eraser? Both these addons let you play with the tab titles so that you can change them according to your will.

 

Gish It / tEMPORARYiNBOX / spamavert

 

Gish It!, TemporaryInbox, spamavert - These addons allow you to protect your inboxes from Spam by getting throwaway email addresses to be used with web forms while registering for sites you are not sure about.

BetterPrivacy

BetterPrivacy - Now you don’t need to worry from anything like ‘you are being tracked..!!’ BetterPrivacy is a Super-Cookie Safeguard which protects from usually undeletable Flash-Cookies. It blocks long term tracking on Google, YouTube, Ebay to name a few.

Ghostery

Ghostery - It keeps an eye on the websites that are keeping an eye on you i.e. it finds out that which web sites which are tracking you and would alert you about the same.

Torbutton

Torbutton - It provides a button to securely and easily enable or disable the browser’s use of Tor. Tor can be used for anonymous browsing and has been covered on makeuseof in detail.

FoxyProx

FoxyProxy - FoxyProxy automatically switches an internet connection across one or more proxy servers based on URL patterns and switching rules defined by you.

JSview

JSview - Allows you to view the source code of external files like javascript and CSS files. Although it would require a bit of knowledge and looking through the code to determine if it really is harmful, it can be quite useful to see if there is some malicious code sending off your passwords to somewhere else.

If privacy and security are on top of your list check out how to remain safe on public computersand how to set up firefox to automatically clear sensitive data.

Did I miss any addon that you use for similar purposes? (I am sure I have, there are just so many or them!) Fire up a comment and share your Firefox knowledge with us!

Cleano cleans your temp files every time you login

Cleano is a free Windows utility that helps you keep your hard drive clean by deleting your temp files, run history, Internet explorer files, and other data. What sets Cleano apart from other utilities like CCleaner is its simple layout and a nifty little feature that lets you automatically cleanup files when you login to Windows.

Cleano also happens to be a single tiny executable file, which makes this utility a perfect candidate for installation on a USB flash drive which you can use to do some basic cleaning operatings on your work and home computers, as well as the next time you visit your friends or family members who are always complaining that they’re running out of space on their hard disk.

Completely Remove Programs Without Leaving Traces Behind With Revo Uninstaller and More

The Windows Add/Remove Program utility is probably the worst uninstaller around. It is slow at loading all your installed applications and the uninstalling is never clean, leaving traces behind, such as registry entries. Every windows users seriously need a better uninstaller than the default one. One of the alternative is the Revo Uninstaller.

Revo Uninstaller is a freeware Windows application that does not just done the uninstalling but also remove all traces that are left over on your computer. Revo Uninstaller is a much faster and much powerful alternative to Windows Add/Remove Programs utility. No doubt about it.

How about a demonstration on how to completely remove a no-longer needed application from my desktop? Allow me demonstrate. So here the interface that you will see after you launch the Revo Uninstaller. I decided to remove Blogger Backup Utility, a blogger backup service that I used when I was with Blogger since I no longer need it, from my desktop.

First of all, double click the application that you wish to remove. A dialog box will pop up , click “Yes” to continue.

There are four different uninstall mode to choose from. I go for Advanced mode to track and clean all the leftover information of Blogger Backup Utility. This will make my computer truly clean.

Next, the initial analysis and uninstalling are performed.

After the uninstalling has completed , the utility will scan for additional unnecessary files, folders and registry keys that are usually left over on your computer. This is the best part of all!

Let see, there is indeed leftover registry items!

Revo Uninstaller is not just an uninstall software, it also includes other features like the Hunter Mode and cleaning tools. You might want to study yourself on that features. Happy using Revo Uninstaller and kiss goodbye to Windows Add/Remove Programs utility!

Download Revo Uninstaller Now | 1.49 MB5

Driver Sweeper Safely Remove Driver Leftover Files from Your Windows

There is nothing wrong to update your Windows hardware device drivers to the latest version and Driver Update software is an essential and handy tool to automate the process of updating hardware drivers. But if you don’t properly remove your old drivers, they can cause system instability, startup problems, slowdowns, hardware woes, and system crashes.

Driver Sweeper is just the right tool that you need.  This nifty little utility enables you to remove driver leftovers from your system. It sweeps through your system, finds old drivers, then lets you remove them. Here is how you are going to use Driver Sweeper. You can clean your drivers this way:

• Use the official uninstaller(s) of the driver(s) you want to uninstall. I prefer Revo Uninstaller.
• Reboot your PC in Safe Mode.
• Run Driver Sweeper and select what to clean.
• Analyse lists all the entries possible to remove, cleaning removes the entries selected
• More drivers can be selected for the same cleaning process.

This method will delete remaining files upon reboot (if deleting failed). If something goes wrong after the removal, you can always restore to the prior state.

The current supported drivers are NVIDIA (Display and Chipset), ATI (Display), Creative (Sound) Realtek (Sound), Ageia (PhysX) and Microsoft (Mouse).

Driver Sweeper is a freeware and designed to work with Windows 2000, XP and Vista.

Download Driver Sweeper Now (via BlogsDNA)