Experiencing slow browsing speeds using Firefox on Android? Worry not. Here’s a list of Firefox add-ons for Android that can be added to your Firefox web browser to speed up your browsing experience and security. The list will be updated as and when I find new performance-enhancing add-ons.
Table of Contents
Decentraleyes
Decentraleyes protects you against tracking through free and centralized content delivery. It prevents a lot of requests from reaching networks like Google Hosted Libraries and serves local files to keep sites from breaking. Moreover, Decentaleyes complements the regular content blockers.
Websites have increasingly begun to rely much more on large third-parties for content delivery. Cancelling requests for ads or trackers is usually without issue, however blocking actual content, not unexpectedly, breaks pages. The aim of this add-on is to cut-out the middleman by providing lightning speed delivery of local (bundled) files to improve online privacy.
Here’s what it does :
- Protects privacy by evading large delivery networks that claim to offer free services.
- Complements regular blockers such as uBlock Origin (recommended), Adblock Plus, etc.
- Works directly out of the box. No configuration required.
- Note: Decentraleyes is no silver bullet, but it does prevent a lot of websites from making you send these kinds of requests. Ultimately, you can make Decentraleyes block requests for any missing CDN resources, too.
> Here’s a simpler introduction: Link
uBlock Origin
The developer of uBlock Origin claims it to be an efficient blocker that is easy on memory and CPU footprint and yet can load and enforce more than thousands of filters than other popular blockers out there.
Here is an illustrated overview of its efficiency: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-vs.-ABP:-efficiency-compared.
Out of the box, these lists of filters are loaded and enforced:
- EasyList
- Peter Lowe’s Ad server list
- EasyPrivacy
- Malware domains
More lists are available for you to select if you wish:
- Fanboy’s Enhanced Tracking List
- Dan Pollock’s hosts file
- hpHosts’s Ad and tracking servers
- MVPS HOSTS
- Spam404
- And many others
From my experience, based on daily usage I felt that uBlock Origin is far better than AdBlock Plus.
Ghostery
Ghostery lets you enjoy a cleaner, faster, safer browsing experience by giving you the control to make informed decisions about the personal data you share with the trackers on the sites you visit.
What it does –
- Significantly speed up the web by minimizing trackers weighing down your system.
- Get the content you want without the page clutter you don’t.
- Be informed and take control of your data and browsing experience.
Other Features :
- Individual tracker control: block or trust each tracker by site, category, or across the web.
- Instant on-page reporting of the trackers for each site you visit.
- Largest tracker database, with over 2,200 trackers and 4,500 scripts.
- Learn more about each tracker, its purpose, and data collection and retention practices.
That’s all for now. I will update the list as and when I come across stable add-ons for boosting your experience using Firefox on Android.
Also Read: FOSS alternatives for Apps and Services in Android.