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So You've Finally Switched to Firefox: a Brief Guide to a Some Very Useful Add-Ons.

This post is inspired by two things, the first being the announcement by Google that the long delayed Manifest V3 which will kill robust adblocking will finally roll out in June 2024, and the second, a post written by @sexhaver in response to a question as to what adblockers and extensions they use. It's a very good post with some A+ information, worth checking out.

I love Firefox, I love the degree of customization it offers me as a user. I love how it just works. I love the built in security features like DNS over HTTPS, and I love just how many excellent add-ons are available. It is a better browser than Chrome in every respect, and of the many Chromium based browsers out there, only Vivaldi comes close.

There are probably many people out there who are considering switching over to Firefox but are maybe putting it off because they've got Chrome set up the way they like it with the extensions they want, and doing all that again for Firefox seems like a chore. The Firefox Add-on directory is less expansive than the Chrome Web Store (which in recent years has become overrun with garbage extensions that range from useless to active malware), but there is still a lot of stuff to sift through. That's where this short guide comes in.

I'm presently running 33 add-ons for Firefox and have a number of others installed but disabled. I've used many others. These are my picks, the ones that I consider essential, useful, or in some cases just fun.

Adblocking/Privacy/Security:

uBlock Origin: The single best adblocker available. If you're a power user there are custom lists and scripts you can find to augment it.

Privacy Badger: Not strictly necessary if you're also running uBlock, but it does catch a few trackers uBlock doesn't and replaces potentially useful trackers like comment boxes with click-to-activate placeholders.

Decentraleyes: A supplementary tool meant to run alongside uBlock, prevents certain sites from breaking when tracker requests are denied by serving local bundled files as replacement.

NoScript: The nuclear option for blocking trackers, ads, and even individual elements. Operates from a "trust no one" standpoint, you will need to manually enable elements yourself. Not recommended for casual users, but a fantastic tool for the power user.

Webmail Ad Blocker: The first of many webmail related add-ons from Jason Saward I will be recommending. Removes all advertising from webmail services like Gmail or Yahoo Mail.

Popup Blocker (Strict): Strictly blocks ALL pop up/new tab/new window requests from all website by default unless you manually allow it.

SponsorBlock: Not a fan of listening to your favourite YouTuber read advertisements for shitty products like Raycons or BetterHelp? This skips them automatically.

AdNauseam: I don't use this one but some people prefer it. Rather than straight up blocking ads and trackers, it obfuscates data by injecting noise into the tracker surveillance infrastructure. It clicks EVERY ad, making your data profile incomprehensible.

User-Agent Switcher: Allows you to spoof websites attempting to gather information by altering your browser profile. Want to browse mobile sites on desktop? This allows you to do it.

Bitwarden: Bitwarden has been my choice of password manager since LastPass sold out and made their free tier useless. If you're not using a password manager, why not? All of my passwords look like this: $NHhaduC*q3VhuhD&scICLKjvM4rZK5^c7ID%q5HVJ3@gny I don't know a single one of them and I use a passphrase as a master password supplemented by two-factor-authentication. Everything is filled in automatically. It is the only way to live.

Proton Pass: An open source free password manager from the creators of Proton Mail. I've been considering moving over to it from Bitwarden myself.

Webmail/Google Drive:

Checker Plus for Gmail: Provides desktop notifications for Gmail accounts, supports managing multiple accounts, allows you to check your mail, read, mark as read or delete e-mails at a glance in a pop-up window. An absolutely fabulous add-on from Jason Saward.

Checker Plus for Google Drive: Does for your Google Drive what Checker Plus for Gmail does for your Gmail.

Checker Plus for Google Calendar: The same as the above two only this time for your Google Calendar.

Firefox Relay: An add-on that allows you to generate aliases that forward to your real e-mail address.

Accessibility:

Dark Reader: Gives every page on the internet a customizable Dark Mode for easier reading and eye protection.

Read Aloud: A text to speech add-on that reads pages with the press of a button.

Zoom Page WE: Provides the ability to zoom in on pages in multiple ways: text zoom, full page zoom, auto-fit etc.

Mobile Dyslexic: Not one I use, but I know people who swear by it. Replaces all fonts with a dyslexia friendly type face.

Utility:

ClearURLs: Automatically removes tracking data from URLs.

History Cleaner: Automatically deletes browser history older than a set number of days.

Feedbro RSS Feed Reader: A full standalone reader in your browser, take control of your feed and start using RSS feeds again.

Video Download Helper: A great tool for downloading video files from websites.

Snap Link Plus: Fan of Wikipedia binge holes? Snap Link allows to drag select multiple hyperlink and automatically open all of them in new tabs.

Copy PlainText: Copy any text without formatting.

EPUBReader: Read .epub files from within a browser window.

Tab Stash: A no mess, no fuss way to organize groups of tabs as bookmarks. I use it as a temporary bookmark tool, saving sessions or groups of tabs into "to read" folders.

Tampermonkey/Violentmonkey: Managers for installing and running custom user scripts. Find user scripts on OpenUserJS or Greasy Fork, there's an entire galaxy out there of ingenious and weird custom user scripts out there, go discover it.

Browsing & Searching:

Speed Dial 2: A new tab add-on that gives you easy access to your favourite sites.

Unpaywall: Whenever you come across a scholarly article behind a paywall, this add-on will search through all the free databases for an accessible and non-paywalled version of the text.

Web Archives: Come across a dead page? This add-on gives you a quick way to search for cached versions of the page on the Wayback Machine, Google Cache, Archive.is and others.

Bypass Paywalls: Automatically bypasses the paywalls of major websites like those for the New York Times, New Yorker, the Financial Times, Wired, etc.

Simple Translate: Simple one-click translation of web pages powered by Google Translate.

Search by Image: Reverse search any image via several different search engines: Google Image, TinEye, Yandex, Bing, etc.

Website Specific:

PocketTube: Do you subscribe to too many YouTube channels? Would you like a way to organize them? This is your answer.

Enhancer for Youtube: Provides a suite of options that make using YouTube more pleasant: volume boost, theatre mode, forced quality settings, playback speed and mouse wheel volume control.

Augmented Steam: Improves the experience of using Steam in a browser, see price histories of games, take notes on your wishlist, make wish listed games and new DLC for games you own appear more visible, etc.

Return YouTube Dislikes: Does exactly what it says on the package.

BlueBlocker: Hate seeing the absolute dimmest individuals on the planet have their replies catapulted to the top of the feed because they're desperate to suck off daddy Elon sloppy style? This is for you, it automatically blocks all Blue Checks on Twitter. I've used it to block a cumulative 34,000 Blue Checks.

Batchcamp: Allows for batch downloading on Bandcamp.

XKit Rewritten: If you're on Tumblr and you're not using whichever version of XKit is currently available, I honestly don't know what to say to you. This newest version isn't as fully featured as the old XKit of the golden age, but it's been rewritten from the ground up for speed and utility.

Social Fixer for Facebook: I once accidentally visited Facebook without this add-on enabled and was immediately greeted by the worst, mind annihilating content slop I had ever had the misfortune to come across. Videos titled "he wanted her to get lip fillers and she said no so he had bees sting her lips", and AI photos of broccoli Jesus with 6000 comments all saying "wow". Once I turned it on it was just stuff my dad had posted and updates from the Radio War Nerd group.

BetterTTV: Makes Twitch slightly more bearable.

Well I think that's everything. You don't have to install everything here, or even half of it, but there you go, it's a start.

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amazing news for the bisexual community

"oscar isaac" "kristen stewart" "vampire" "thriller" "80s" ???? please

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In case you have little choice on having to use Windows 11.

Option 1: Guide to basic install de-bloated Windows 11 (by Chris Titus, with video and blog article)

Option 2a: Use a script to de-bloat Windows 11 (by simeonsecurity. more digital literacy. check "how to install" section)

Option 2b: Use a script to de-bloat and harden Windows 11 (by simeonsecurity. more digital literacy. check "how to install" section)

Note: If choose Option 2, choose either 2a or 2b. not both.

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- The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter #246

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Sam and Frodo are just like Orpheus and Eurydice. Frodo is Eurydice, doomed to die — we’re repeatedly told, again and again, that Frodo is fated lose his life in the quest for the Ring. “In his heart Frodo begins to understand the Quest will claim his life,” Galadriel says, and she’s right. Frodo’s death is constantly foreshadowed, as if it’s inevitable; Frodo himself begins to feel it is inevitable. Because of the Ring he’s drawn irresistibly to the Dead City, to the dead faces in the marshes, and to his own self destruction and inevitable death.

But Sam is Orpheus. He acknowledges Frodo is fated to die but he refuses to let it happen. He journeys into the depths of hell, the depths of the underworld, to fight against that inevitability and steal Frodo back from death itself. On one side, you have the inevitability of Frodo’s death, which Frodo himself has accepted; you have all of destiny and fate and mortality; you have Frodo’s own growing weariness and even suicidality— and on the other side, you have one person who is in love with Frodo and wants him to live.

And Sam wins!

He does the impossible! He does the equivalent of making the God of Death weep with his song; in the book he even finds Frodo in the orc tower of Mordor while singing a song of hope, in what feels like a reference to Orpheus and Eurydice. He journeys where almost no man has ever gone before and he rescues the person he loves from the jaws of their inevitable death. He takes on all of destiny and fatality with nothing but his love, and he wins!

But even after all of that, they’re still parted.

Sam fell in love with someone who was doomed by the narrative, and he saved him from his fate, but now they can’t be together until he’s healed.

There’s so much hope in the end of Frodo and Sam’s story though, especially because Sam follows Frodo across the sea. They’re not parted forever; there’s so much hope that because Sam saved him they can now reunite, in another life, and that this time their story will end differently.

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Liv Tyler as Arwen in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - 2001

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my favorite lotr behind the scenes pics pt. 2

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One SEVERELY underrated moment in the Fellowship of the Ring, one of my favorite subtle moments in the film, is Aragorn’s reaction to Weathertop.

First the Hobbits/Aragorn travel out of Bree and into a barren wilderness. After struggling for days through barren plains and disgusting marshes full of so much nothing, they arrive here:

A bare, melancholy landscape in the middle of nowhere.  The music is bleak and lonely.

There is nothing around except a pile of broken ruins on a far hill. 

Aragorn’s reaction is to say, basically to himself: “this was once the great watch tower of Amon Sûl .” 

And you realize that the lifeless landscapes these characters have been journeying through for the past few days used to be part of a beautiful, vibrant kingdom that no longer exists. 

And that Aragorn understands that, and feels that loss, but the hobbits don’t.

Then they set up camp on Weathertop. The hobbits all put their things down and start to relax….but Aragorn stands up, and walks away.

Then he stands on the edge of Weathertop, and looks out over he landscape:

It actually took me a while to notice that you can see his silhouette under the overhang, against the clouds:

And while this moment is tiny, it reminds me of a moment in the book. When Aragorn and co. arrive at Weathertop in the book…..Aragorn suggests they all look out over the top, so that they can see the same view the ancient kings saw when they used Weathertop as a watch tower.

And that’s what I feel like Aragorn is doing in this little moment– surveying the horizon the way the ancient kings used to do before everything fell apart.

And I love that because…. there’s a recurring thing in the films where Aragorn comes across symbols of  his kingdom, but the symbols are always decayed or broken. The most obvious example of this is Narsil, the Sword that Was Broken.  (And Aragorn’s character arc in the films is about learning that his kingdom, though it seems hopelessly broken, is not beyond repair.)

And I think Weathertop is another, more subtle, example of that.

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It’s weird that Aragorn has a reputation for being a Loner™ when every time the heroes go to a new place they find out Aragorn Has Friends There. If you could theoretically have friends there, then Aragorn Has Friends There

They meet Aragorn in Bree, turns out he’s Friends with Gandalf, then makes Friends with the hobbits, then they arrive at Rivendell and what a twist he’s also Friends with the Rivendell elves! especially Arwen and Elrond! There’s an elf from Mirkwood in their fellowship who was already his Friend, but he also quickly becomes Friends with the dwarf from Ered Luin who hates that elf’s guts.  Boromir of Gondor initially WANTS to hate him but within a couple weeks he’s calling Aragorn his brother. The Fellowship arrives at Lorien and oh  Aragorn didn’t bring it up but he’s also Good Friends with Galadriel and Haldir and Celeborn and all them too! They travel to Rohan and Aragorn’s like “oh yeah I didn’t mention it before but I’m Friends with the people of Rohan, I knew King Theoden as a kid, and–”. He even makes Friends with his horse

 Aragorn tries to befriend everyone, from a 3-foot tall hobbit who’s not yet an adult to an elf-queen-sorceress older than the moon. He doesn’t seem grim/lonely because he’s friendless, he seems grim and lonely because he has so many friends, in so many places, that he’s always missing someone

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The last scene in Fellowship of the Ring is Sam and Frodo walking to Mordor, together.

The last scene in the Two Towers is Sam and Frodo walking to Mordor, together.

The last scene in Return of the King is Sam walking home, alone.

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Liv Tyler as Arwen. Promo shot from the deleted scenes of Arwen at Helm’s Deep.

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#coqutte #lana del ray #pintrest girl #dark feminine #black swan #female rage #gone girl #girlblogger #manic pixie dream girl

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lord of the rings bigatures my beloved

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One of my favorite parts of Lord of the Rings is how the history of the environments always echoes what’s happening in the story.

Most sequences in Lotr are like: “the heroes enter a location that is ruined/fading/dead. Then the heroes do something that makes the location’s lost history come to life again, if only for a moment.”

Like the most obvious example of this is Moria. The heroes walk into Balin’s tomb and read the story of what happened there– the dwarves hearing drums in the deep, barricading the door, and being attacked by goblins.

Then immediately after the heroes hear drums in the deep, barricade the door, and have to survive an onslaught of goblins, just as the dwarves did.

The other really obvious example is Mount Doom: Sam tries to get Frodo to let go of the Ring, and Frodo refuses– echoing how Elrond tried to get Isildur to let go of the Ring, and Isildur refused.

But there are more subtle versions of this too-- like I’ve already talked a lot about how much I love this part of Weathertop. Weathertop was once a magnificent old watch-tower that was used by ancient kings, and long ago the ancient kings even used to battle over who owned it. Then the Northern Kingdom fell, and the watchtower fell into ruins and was forgotten.

But then Aragorn (a king in exile) and the Nazgul (who were “great kings of men”) return to Weathertop– and it’s like an echo of the battles that used to happen there.  This watchtower fell into ruin and lost its royal identity, the Nazgul fell into ruin and lost their identities, and Aragorn turned from kingship and chose a life of anonymity– so it’s like!!!!!!!! The kings are as faded as weathertop itself!! It drives me wild

(also: unrelated but I love this shot where Aragorn is a dark silhouette and the Ringwraiths are bright white silhouettes, it’s just nice)

Another example is Amon Hen and the Argonath. This land used to belong to Gondor,– but it’s broken, overgrown, in ruins, and gradually fading away.

And this is the place where Boromir dies– the place that symbolizes his country’s death.

But it’s also the place where film!Aragorn finally decides to accept his responsibliity to Gondor–when he realizes that Gondor/mankind has worth, even if it’s  faded and in ruins and ultimately doomed.

Or there’s Helm’s Deep in the Two Towers, where the history of Helm’s Deep as a fortress that can’t be taken is repeatedly tied to the hero’s efforts to save it. The heroes find courage by reminding themselves of the fortress’s history. (“The horn of Helm Hammerhand shall sound in the deep– one last time!”)

Or the way Frodo making the choice to take the Ring to Mordor, leaving his home behind, ties into the history of Rivendell– to the way elves are preparing to leave their home behind. Or the way the elves’ grief at how Lothlorien is doomed to fade away ties to the heroes’ grief at the death of Gandalf. 

Idk! It’s like every scene! And sometimes the characters themselves are aware they might relive the past– and it it fills them with hope (Helm’s Deep) or dread (Moria, Mount Doom.)  But sometimes it’s subtle, to the point where the characters themselves might not realize it’s happening. And i just think that’s neat

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Peter Jackson on casting Frodo

“Frodo was a very, very important character in the movies. But he’s also a very difficult character to play and to cast. […] We were convinced that Frodo is gonna be an English actor, ’cause we wanted the Hobbits to basically be English as Tolkien really wrote them. So, we went to London and we started auditioning.

We couldn’t think of any actor to play Frodo. We had nobody in mind. We thought it would be unknown English actor, a young kid. We were in London auditioning for about a month and we’ve probably seen three hundred Frodos. There were two or three that were okay, but nothing magical, you know. ’Cause Frodo had to be magical. Every time the casting room door opened and some nervous young actor would come in, we were saying, ‘is this gonna be Frodo?’ And you sort of know within ten seconds that it wasn’t really Frodo. It was a worry, but we were plugging on.

And then our casting director said to us one day, ‘A package’s just come in the mail. It’s from Elijah Wood’. It was a video tape, a VHS tape. I had heard Elijah’s name, but I’ve never seen a film he’d done. I actually had no face for Elijah, I didn’t know how he looked like.

So, we put the video tape in. Elijah was in LA and heard that we were in London and we’re not gonna come to LA. He really wanted to get this role. So, he hired a dialect coach to teach him accent, he’d gone to the local costume-hire, got some cheesy kind of Hobbit costume on. He’d gone into the trees somewhere behind his house with a friend, and he just videotaped his own audition. He didn’t have our script, so he was reading from the book, he was doing Frodo parts from the book.

I just put this video tape in, and literally, not having known who Elijah Wood was really, I just thought, ‘he’s wonderful, he’s absolutely great’. And so, Elijah cast himself”.

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