T-Care!

To minimize the risk of succumbing to a web-borne attack then, it's essential that laptop users use the Web as safely as possible, and the first thing to decide upon is a browser.

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.

Ensuring that the browser is up to date can help minimize security risks, but perhaps the most interesting feature of Firefox from a security perspective is the possibility of enhancing the browser's security with the addition of browser extensions or add-ons. Of course any add-ons risks adding new vulnerabilities, but if they protect against known problems at the expense of possibly adding as-yet unknown ones, then the trade-off may well be worth it.

With that proviso, here are some important ones to consider for anyone browsing the Web and to protect against web-based exploits, and more general security risks.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.