Firefox Privacy Setup: A Minimal, Practical Guide

A lot of Firefox privacy guides tell you to change dozens of settings and install a pile of extensions. Most of those changes break websites and don't make a meaningful difference. Here's the minimal setup that actually improves your privacy without making the web unusable.

Start With Firefox's Built-In Settings

Settings → Privacy & Security

1. Enhanced Tracking Protection: Set to "Strict" if you want maximum protection. If this breaks sites, switch to "Custom" and dial back to "Standard."

2. Cookies: "Delete cookies and site data when Firefox is closed" — enable this if you don't need persistent logins. If you use banking or shopping sites, this will log you out every time. Not for everyone.

3. HTTPS-Only Mode: Enable in "Security" section. Forces all connections to use HTTPS. Breaks a tiny number of old sites; improve your security on all others.

4. DNS over HTTPS: Settings → General → Network Settings → Enable DNS over HTTPS. Set provider to Cloudflare or a provider you trust. Prevents your ISP from seeing domain lookups. Note: your ISP still sees which IPs you connect to.

Three Extensions Worth Adding

Keep it to three. More extensions = more attack surface and more possible conflicts.

1. uBlock Origin (essential)
addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/

The best ad/tracker blocker. Enable "Medium mode" if you're comfortable reading its dashboard, or leave it on the default "Easy mode." The default settings block most trackers without breaking sites.

2. Firefox Multi-Account Containers (highly recommended)
addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/

Isolates cookies by container. Social media can't track you across sites if Facebook lives in its own container that never touches your shopping or banking sessions.

3. NightOwl (optional, for dark mode users)
addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/nightowl1/

Forces dark mode on any site. Included here because it's local-only with no telemetry — not for privacy reasons specifically, but as an example of an extension that does what it says and nothing else.

One about:config Change

privacy.trackingprotection.fingerprinting.enabled → set to true

This blocks fingerprinting scripts beyond what Enhanced Tracking Protection covers, with minimal impact on site breakage.

What You Don't Need

Privacy Badger: Partially redundant with uBlock Origin and ETP. Pick one.

ClearURLs: Strips tracking parameters from URLs. Sounds useful; in practice, most links that matter already have tracking stripped by uBlock Origin's filter lists.

Canvas Blocker: Blocks canvas fingerprinting APIs. Can break web games and graphics apps. Only add this if you specifically care about canvas fingerprinting.

VPN: A VPN shifts trust from your ISP to the VPN provider. It's not a privacy tool per se. If you trust your VPN more than your ISP, use one; otherwise you're just moving the problem.

The Honest Trade-Off

This setup gives you:

• Cross-site tracker blocking (ETP + uBlock Origin)
• Cookie isolation per context (Containers)
• Some fingerprint protection
• DNS query privacy from your ISP

It doesn't give you:

• Anonymity (your IP is still visible to sites you visit)
• Protection from browser fingerprinting at the level of Tor Browser
• Security against targeted attacks

For most people, this setup is a meaningful improvement over defaults without significantly degrading the web experience. If you need stronger anonymity, use Tor Browser for specific sessions instead of trying to harden Firefox for everything.

Managing Tab Context With Privacy in Mind

One privacy benefit of good tab management: Tab Manager & Session Saver stores session data in browser.storage.local, so your saved tab contexts never leave your device. Named sessions you restore are handled entirely locally.

This matters less than the above settings, but for users who care about local-only data storage, it's worth knowing which extensions handle data this way.