My main (and mostly only) browser is Firefox (on Linux); although I do use multiple profiles thus I don't mix my "web-site" surfing with my "web-app" usage (each application gets its own profile).
However, to enhance its capabilities I'm also relying on a few (open-source) addons.
A very important observation though, I never use plugins within application profiles, especially with things such as internet banking (which is brittle enough as it is). I use these plugins only for my generic, unauthenticated browsing.
First, let's get the "you need these to actually use the internet" category:
- uBlock Origin, which is the current "best" ad-blocker and tracker-blocker out there;
- uMatrix, which I see as the "firewall for your browser"; very low-level, very powerful; written by the same developer as uBlock Origin;
- uBlacklist, which allows you to filter out certain sites from your Google and DuckDuckGo searches;
Then there are a few other small but extremely useful addons:
- Open With, which allows me to delegate opening links (or windows) in another browser, or to invoke tools with the URL as an argument;
- Livemarks, which allows me to quickly find and copy RSS (and other feed) links present in the current page; (Firefox used to have this option built-in, but for some reason, RSS feeds fell out of fashion...)
- Tab Reloader, which allows me to set automatic page refreshes on a timer;
- Decentraleyes, which replaces some commonly fetched resources with local embedded copies, thus allowing you to (perhaps) evade some of the tracking that happens via the large CDN providers; (looking at you Google...)
- User-Agent Switcher and Manager, which allows me to use a different
User-Agentheader; (I don't use it for web development or testing, but more as a way to bypass some dumb paywalls, or as a stupid and easy authentication technique;)
In a previous life I've also used the following addons, but most aren't needed any more, or were replaced by some on the list above:
- Privacy Badger, developed by EFF, now replaced by uMatrix and uBlock Origin; furthermore many of its functions are already built-in into Firefox;
- HTTPS Everywhere, developed by EFF, now replaced by the HTTPS-Only mode built-in into Firefox;
- Greasemonkey, which allowed me to inject custom JavaScript snippets in various sites;
- Stylish, which allowed me to inject custom CSS snippets in various sites; (now I've switched to a custom chrome/userContent.css file;)
- NoScript, now replaced by uMatrix and uBlock Origin;
- Ghostery, now replaced by uMatrix and uBlock Origin;
And finally, here are some extensions that I've used to use, but which aren't available anymore (mainly due to internal Firefox changes):
- It's All Text!, which allowed me to edit the contents of a text area with my favorite plain-text editor; (it really made my life easy with wikis and GMail, but now wikis are out of fashion, and Google has long ago broken the usability of its product, thus I'm using Thunderbird now...)
- Text2Link, which allowed me to highlight something that resembles an URL (which was not marked as an
<a>element), and treat it like a proper link; (I've always wondered why Firefox doesn't provide such a feature built-in...) - OverbiteFF, now replaced by OverbiteWX, which allowed me to browse Gopher sites;
As a bonus, here are some addons that my friends swear by: