gHacks
ghacks.net · Group blog · on HN since 2008
News site covering Firefox, browsers, Windows, and privacy tools, with practical how-tos on settings and extensions.
What HN saysCommenters call it a daily staple for learning something new, and cite it for Firefox privacy settings, browser privacy test results, and add-on guidance.
626HN people shared it
387linked it in comments
397stories submitted
9.1Kstory points
3 months agolast shared
2008people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Each Firefox download has a unique identifier12 people · 601 points · first shared 2022 · 457 comments on HN
- 2You can now install any add on in firefox nightly for android but it is complicated8 people · first shared 2021
- 3Configure DNS Over HTTPS in Firefox7 people · 19 points · first shared 2018 · 1 comments on HN
- 4Firefox Beta for Android now supports custom add-on collections6 people · 115 points · first shared 2022 · 69 comments on HN
- 5Chrome Extension Manifest V3 Could End UBlock Origin for Chrome6 people · 47 points · first shared 2019 · 4 comments on HN
- 6Former Microsoft Employee explains why bugs in Windows updates increased (2019)6 people · 4 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 7First-Party Isolation in Firefox6 people · 1 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 8Mozilla to launch Firefox Cliqz Experiment with data collecting5 people · 5 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 9Brave appears to install VPN Services without user consent5 people · 4 points · first shared 2023 · 4 comments on HN
- 10Homepage5 people · first shared 2015
- 11How to restore the old firefox address bar5 people · first shared 2020
- 12Microsoft intercepting Firefox, Chrome installation on Windows 10 Insider build4 people · 1.2K points · first shared 2018 · 740 comments on HN
- 13Google making YouTube slower for non-Chromium browsers?4 people · 42 points · first shared 2018 · 10 comments on HN
- 14The browser stores passwords and sensitive data in clear text in memory4 people · 16 points · first shared 2022 · 6 comments on HN
- 15Firefox 75 drops HTTPS and WWW from address bar results4 people · 14 points · first shared 2020 · 3 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
kosasbest · 2022-08-06
I've always loved gHacks[0] and ZDNet's Zero Day[1].
Those are my daily staple. Always something new to learn.
[0] https://www.ghacks.net/
[1] https://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/
bovine3dom · 2019-08-28
It's possible. Last I heard was that the unbranded builds were too eager to update [1] so it could well have been disabled totally. The Mozilla wiki doesn't mention anything about updating being disabled which to me implies it is not. If you find out for certain, please let me know!
I don't personally use the builds as Mozilla has not yet blocked signing of our extensions and `web-ext run` serves me well for development. Automated signing is not brilliantly documented but works well enough [2-3] to ensure that our builds are tested by real users before we release a stable version.
[1]: https://www.ghacks.net/?p=123637
[2]: https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl/blob/f45c990eac074df815e9cd8c27…
[3]: https://github.com/tridactyl/buildbot/blob/master/autobuild.sh
aq3cn · 2016-11-04
You can create multiple profiles in firefox with various level of security settings. Use noscript for unknown websites in anonymous ff profile.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove…
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/
I read ghacks blog frequently to keep myself up to date with new features being added in Firefox. Follow this blog and read their previous articles to learn how to stay safe in online world.
http://www.ghacks.net/
this link is also helpful to stay safe
https://www.privacytools.io/
zorrolovsky · 2025-02-28
I've been using LibreWolf as my daily driver for a couple of years. Highly recommended! Available for Windows, MacOS and Linux. Ranked as the highest for privacy protection in a 2022 study: https://www.ghacks.net/2022/06/15/privacytests-reveals-how-your-web-br…
Occasionally, you might get a broken website but to fix it you just click on the shield icon and lower the privacy settings.
gpchelkin · 2023-11-22
I struggled so long with having to use Chrome for translations on Android until I found out that my favourite translating extension works with mobile Firefox just perfectly. See [3] on how to install it in Firefox Beta (maybe this method or even the extension itself is already available in Firefox Release).
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/traduzir-paginas-web/
[2] https://github.com/FilipePS/Traduzir-paginas-web
[3] https://www.ghacks.net/2022/10/20/firefox-beta-for-android-now-support…
xypage · 2023-09-01
It does, kind of.
It's not really officially advertised but it is first party, this guide [0] shows how to find it but it's just https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=CHANNELID and the guide just explains how to find CHANNELID since it isn't explicitly shared (which amounts to going a channel page, viewing page source, and searching for "browse_id" which will be a key in a JSON string where the value is the channel ID).
[0]: https://www.ghacks.net/2022/08/01/how-to-subscribe-to-youtube-rss-feed…
buzer · 2023-08-30
This seems like very recent addition. I didn't initially see it in settings but I noticed Chrome wanted to update (I normally use Firefox). After updating there actually was a popup telling about the settings Ad Privacy with option to open the settings page. While it being opt-out setting is not great at least they did have decadency to inform me about the change which often is not the case. I forgot to take a screenshot but it did look like following: https://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/new-ads-privacy.png
hexage1814 · 2023-07-05
It's also worth notice that Mozilla, for instance, removed Bypass Paywalls Clean
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/04/20/mozilla-removes-bypass-paywalls-clea…
concinds · 2023-06-15
Those "who love to have a movie on in the background while they game" can now pin the Overlay's browser in a translucent frame that floats on top of the game.
But you'd have to be crazy to use that browser, if it's still insecure, out of date, and with sandboxing disabled: https://www.ghacks.net/2016/02/08/steam-uses-insecure-out-of-date-chro… Especially with the NSA saying Steam is a popular attack vector.
Did they ever fix that? How responsive are they in keeping CEF up to date?
arp242 · 2023-02-13
The statement "this is how the internet should be, free for everyone, without censorship and restrictions" comments on the business activities of online publications, without offering any alternative.
It's pretty on-topic in this specific instance.
The author also wrote "Top 4 Chrome ad blockers that you need to know about"[1] which rails against ads. So they don't want paywalls. They don't want ads. Then what?
It seems their views on all of this are rather unsophisticated (yet they still make broad sweeping statements about it).
[1]: https://www.ghacks.net/2021/08/12/best-chrome-ad-blocker-extensions/
hcs · 2023-01-18
I noticed this a few days ago when following a [pdf] link from HN. It's pdf.js as on desktop, though the UI is not too full-featured yet. It's going to save me a lot of irritation dealing with other PDF apps.
Article from a few weeks ago, before it was enabled: https://www.ghacks.net/2022/12/10/firefox-for-android-is-getting-a-nat…
jszymborski · 2022-10-01
I use it daily too and it's on my list of essential plugins, but gorhill archived the repo and development has halted as best as I can tell [0] which leads to complications [1].
[0] https://www.ghacks.net/2020/09/20/umatrix-development-has-ended/
[1] https://www.ghacks.net/2021/07/15/umatrix-has-an-unfixed-vulnerability…
jve · 2022-08-18
> Edge also does all or almost all these things
I'm not a heavyweight user of bookmarks. But I do love vertical tabs and grouping, which can be collapsed. Moreover, they can be saved to collections (to get rid from tabs) and collection can are restored as groups. Notes can be added to collections or entries, tho I don't use it
Anyway, not that there would be some kind of search for collections - not even the URL bar detects items in there.
https://www.ghacks.net/2021/07/02/tab-groups-in-microsoft-edge-work-be…
sacrosanct · 2022-08-14
Martin Brinkmann https://www.ghacks.net/
Seth Godin https://seths.blog/
Multiple authors https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/
Derek Sivers https://sive.rs/
323 · 2022-05-21
Only for installation. Afterwards you can create and use it with a local account:
> For those who want to use a local account, the best solution is to create a burner Microsoft account for use during setup and then to either create a new local user account or sign out of your Microsoft account once the OS is up and running.
https://www.ghacks.net/2022/05/06/how-to-use-local-accounts-on-windows…
If users hate this they can use Apple or Linux.
But the vast majority want online accounts for data backup.
KennyBlanken · 2022-04-19
I'm not sure why you would be impressed by something that has been possible in Firefox and Chrome for many years with a de-amp extension (though I would recommend a more general-purpose URL-de-cruftifier, such as ClearURLs, which will also remove most tracking bits from URLs.)
Google removed ClearURLs from the chrome add-ons store because (I wish I were making it up) the extension's description was too detailed: https://www.ghacks.net/2021/03/25/the-curious-case-of-clearurls-remova…
Brave implementing this, while nice, is basically a nothingburger.
rbinv · 2022-03-29
Google used to have that feature: https://www.ghacks.net/2011/03/10/google-adds-block-all-domain-results…
In my opinion, back then, they needed the data as a training set for spammy domain detection. Now that SERP spam is no longer a serious issue (in Google's eyes anyway), why bother. Google always knows what's best for you.
rsolva · 2022-03-20
It's pretty well hidden and involves quite a few steps. I think you should be able to follow the same steps as in this Firefox Nightly guide: https://www.ghacks.net/2020/10/01/you-can-now-install-any-add-on-in-fi…
nuerow · 2021-11-02
> How considerate of them, I felt I didn't have enough auto-updating background agents yet.
I'm not sure you are aware that this feature is toggled in Firefox's settings. You can get a glimpse of the settings panel in the following link:
https://www.ghacks.net/2021/11/02/firefox-94-0-release-here-is-what-is…
pndy · 2021-08-05
This isn't exclusive to Apple - Microsoft recently decided that starting from August Windows Defender will have the option for blocking PUAs enabled by default for those users who doesn't have other third-party security software [1]. This also I belive falls under "we know what's best" and "the customer is not to be trusted" or "is too stupid to run things by on its own".
This does looks good on paper - caring for customers and their security, peace of mind but tomorrow it might be a total vendor-lock with no ways of installing any other software than one approved by the corporate entities.
[1] - https://www.ghacks.net/2021/08/03/windows-10-blocks-potentially-unwant…
noisem4ker · 2021-06-04
I don't remember Mozilla saying that. There were voices of suspicion, though, following the decision to disable loading of userChrome.css by default, allegedly for performance reasons. https://www.ghacks.net/2019/05/24/firefox-69-userchrome-css-and-userco…
ccmcarey · 2021-03-24
I used Firefox for years.
I recently moved back to a Chromium based browser (Edge). Even on a fairly powerful system (16 logi cores/4GHz) it's just noticeably faster. SPAs are actually usable again. Video decoding is hardware accelerated and I can now play 4k videos without every interaction with the browser lagging like crazy.
Firefox is great, theoretically. But even then, Mozilla keep making inane decisions - lately their plans to remove compact mode [0] were in the news. Why?!
[0] https://www.ghacks.net/2021/03/14/mozilla-plans-to-remove-the-compact-…
clankyclanker · 2021-02-07
It took me years to find this, but here’s a summary:
https://www.ghacks.net/2018/07/25/mozilla-plans-to-remove-rss-feed-rea…
In short, updating the feature to competitive UX and security expectations wouldn’t have been worth the effort based on the usage numbers.
1vuio0pswjnm7 · 2020-11-19
Each user's version of Chrome is not necessarily the same. As a result of field trials/variations, some Chrome users are running code that is not yet (and may never be) available to the public.
https://textslashplain.com/2017/10/18/chrome-field-trials/
https://www.ghacks.net/2013/04/05/field-trials-in-chrome-how-to-random…
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12183575/what-is-following-header-…
TedDoesntTalk · 2020-08-15
> so far FF/Mozilla 1, Brave/Chrome 0
Mozilla has had more missteps than Brave because it's been around longer. I can't name all the ones which betrayed trust, but the Mr. Robot scandal comes to mind:
https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/16/16784628/mozilla-mr-robot-arg-plug…
and:
https://www.ghacks.net/2017/02/12/firefox-focus-privacy-scandal/
and:
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/anxfz8/firefox_is_spyware_ex…
and many others.
Having said that, I still use both Firefox and Brave. It's ok to make missteps as long as you fix them and learn from them. Otherwise, I'd never use any product and never have any friends. No one is perfect.
clairity · 2020-04-07
firefox also removes 'www' and 'https' in drop-down search results from the address bar[0]. it's a subtle change, but worth knowing. 'http' urls remain in long form apparently (haven't installed yet to check it out).
edit: min(), max(), and clamp() for css looks useful too.
edit 2: honoring 'nosniff' on mime types on page load is neat too [1]
[0] https://www.ghacks.net/2020/02/28/firefox-75-address-bar-results/
[1] https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2020/04/07/firefox-75-will-respect-n…
p4t44 · 2019-09-21
> We have no immediate plans to remove blocking webRequest and are working with add-on developers to gain a better understanding of how they use the APIs in question to help determine how to best support them.
I don't take from that they will apply it in the future, just they don't want to rule anything out.
source: https://www.ghacks.net/2019/09/03/mozilla-wont-follow-google-in-limiti…
the_duke · 2019-08-12
If the intent is no tracking, then this defeats the purpose.
Often the browser stays open for hours and you'll have identifying tracking cookies very quickly.
A great, really underused feature in Firefox is first party cookie isolation: it isolates all cookies set by a site to the same domain, preventing all cross site tracking.
Set privacy.firstparty.isolate to true in about:config.
Some more info: https://www.ghacks.net/2017/11/22/how-to-enable-first-party-isolation-…
O1111OOO · 2019-01-22
https://www.ghacks.net/2019/01/22/chrome-extension-manifest-v3-could-e…
ghacks does a great job of explaining this (saw it first here).
Paraphrasing the article: Basically, they are limiting filters (used by ad-blockers) to 30k. Lots of blocking lists use more than 30k.
This is part of (possible) removal of blocking options from the webRequest API and the (possible) move to declarativeNetRequest to handle blocking requests.
jjordan · 2018-12-11
Is this the version that kills Live Bookmarks? Some of us FF old-timers are hopelessly reliant on these things, and it's, as far as I have found, the fastest way to quickly scan lists of headlines from all your favorite sites at once. Seriously, one click and you can quickly mouse over the sites on your bookmarks toolbar to consume hundreds of headlines.
I really, REALLY hate that they're killing this feature, but this addon promises to restore it: https://www.ghacks.net/2018/07/30/livemarks-restores-live-bookmarks-su…
Edit: here's the official GitHub: https://github.com/nt1m/livemarks/