Notes

While “Addthis” is supposed to be an helper, it is an annoyance for me because when you hover the mouse over it, a window popups and stays there until you manually close it.

An easy way to block it if you use Adblock plus, is to add the following filter (Tools – Adblock Plus Preferences – Filters – Add Filter..):

.addthis.com/*

A few programs:

• Tor: “enabling Internet anonymity by thwarting network traffic analysis”
• Privoxy: “It has filtering capabilities for protecting privacy, modifying web page data, managing cookies, controlling access, and selectively removing content such as ads, banners and pop-ups.”
• Enigmail: “It enables you to write and receive email messages signed and/or encrypted with the OpenPGP standard.”
• Off-the-Record Messaging (OTR): “cryptographic protocol that provides strong encryption for instant messaging conversations”

An interesting talk on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpHWnHxmnXg (Part 1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOEMv0S8AcA (Part 2)

Using Firefox and Adblock Plus, you can block some unwanted “features” of Facebook: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/05/how-to_avoid_facebook_malware.html. For example, it should prevent Facebook from sharing information with other websites.

Or if you want, you can completely delete your account, thanks to the The Consumerist. You could also just deactivate your account if you plan on re-using it.

I tried many other add-ons and extensions, but these are the ones I can’t live without:

1. Adblock Plus
2. No Script
3. Firebug (mostly for web development)

Best way I found to get rid of the digg bar:

Greasemonkey’s DiggBar Killer script.

Pre-requisites: Greasemonkey for Firefox.