I’ve reinstalled firefox, and followed the instructions on privacyguides.org for disabling telemetry and suggestions. Since firefox has been rolling out a ton of changes lately, is arkenfox necessary?
So far, I have:
→ disabled pocket (extensions.pocket.enabled)
→ installed ublock origin
Is it particularly useful for me to do anything else on top of this, or would additional modifications to the settings be counterproductive?
Arkenfox’s user.js is necessary if you are looking for advanced anti-fingerprinting Firefox setup. This user.js project still exists because Firefox didn’t implement Arkenfox’s changes to its default state and you have to tinker with it a lot to reach the same level of privacy as Arkenfox offers.
The question is, do you need this level of anti-fingerprinting or not? That answers your question of Arkenfox’s necessity for you.
If you’re after just disabling telemetry then what you’ve done so far should suffice, unless Arkenfox does some more in that regard, but i can’t say for sure.
That would be the case if you want to mitigate fingerprinting, because additional careless modifications can make you stand out. The less is more ©. But if you want to nip telemetry in the bud then there’s no ceiling, go as far as you wish.
Thanks for the reply. It’s probably best for me to use arkenfox in that case (though there are a lot of prefs to go through that break websites so it’s a bit of work).
Not really, only a few preferences that cause the most site breakage.
Some websites even blocks you due to the use of RFP. It’s really a dealbreaker for me in Arkenfox.
You can turn it off if it doesn’t work for you.
I have it enabled even when I don’t use arkenfox. It’s so rare to have it break sites that it’s easy to just go to prefs, disable it, use the shitty website and then re-enable it.
I’ve seen some recommendations for Yokoeffings Betterfox user.js for users that dont need the Arkenfox level of tweaks so thought i would mention it. And because it specifically has a goal not to break sites it will not achieve the higher level that Arken does.
- Minimalism: get what isn’t needed out of the way
- Efficiency: unleash Firefox’s ability to be fast and performant
- Privacy: protect your data without causing site breakage
Disclaimer: I do not use any kind of user.js tweaks and only have done so briefly a several years back for quick testing before realising it is not sommething i need. So everybody should do their own research and decide what the right approach is for their needs.
(Yokoeffing is also the maintainer of the excellent, and often recommended NextDNS Guide)