Zero-Bullshit Web Browsing

Listen to "Ace of Base - The Sign" on YouTube?

The current state of the web? Total bullshit. If you're tired of dealing with stupid ads, tracking, ads with sound, scripts that make the page lag, and ads that deliver viruses, I'll offer a few tips on avoiding them.

Browsers

If you're still using IE or Chrome, I would say don't. Here's a couple of alternatives you might like.

On the Gecko side of things, I recommend Pale Moon. It's nicely optimized, retains the customization that Firefox threw out six years ago, and is made by a small non-corporate dev team.

For WebKit enthusiasts, why not give Vivaldi a try? Being the spiritual successor to the classic Opera browser, it gives you some nice options to play with.

Extensions

uBlock Origin: Pale Moon | Vivaldi: Very efficient content blocker. Go into the settings, turn on some of the filter lists, and marvel at how much faster the Web gets. However, the Legacy edition currently does not have script blocking capability.
NoScript 5.1.9 for Pale Moon: This switches JS into an opt-in experience. The browser will try to spout some nonsense about this extension causing stability problems, but tell it to shut its fuck and use it anyway.
Decentraleyes: Pale Moon | Vivaldi: Loads common libraries (jQuery etc.) from disk instead of a centralized source that could potentially track usage.
Anti-autoplay: Pale Moon | Vivaldi: Videos don't need to be sounding off unless you click on them.
Night Mode: Pale Moon | Vivaldi: Lots of websites confuse LCD screens for paper and attempt to sear your retinas with a blinding fluorescent white. It's an easy mistake to make, but one that you don't need to suffer from any longer.
Pure URLs: Pale Moon | (Vivaldi equivalent unknown): Lastly, here's something to strip any links you click on of referral and other metrics/tracking junk.
RSS Reader: Pale Moon | Vivaldi: Fuck an algorithmic social media feed - curate your own!
Archiver: Pale Moon | Vivaldi: Like webpages but hate when you go to visit them again only to find they've disappeared? CTRL plus S, quick MAFFs.

Alternatives

Search

DuckDuckGo: Decade-old search engine that doesn't provide any personalized results.

Searx: Surveillance-avoiding metasearch that uses 70+ sources via 20+ instances.

YouTube

Invidious: Lightweight frontend for YouTube with dark mode and other great features.

PeerTube: WebTorrent-based distributed video sharing service on the Fediverse.

Twitter

Nitter: Lightweight frontend for Twitter to get rid of the bloat and tracking.

Mastodon: Distributed social network with moderators who actually do shit.

Programs

BitDefender: One of the top real-time AVs that you can get for free.

MalwareBytes: Powerful on-demand virus scanner and remover.

TinyWall: A small program to harden Windows's built-in firewall.

Destroy Windows Spying: Gets rid of the telemetry and tracking baked into the operating system.

TorGuard (H/T VPN Tier List): According to independent reviewer Tom Spark, this is the #1 VPN on the market (out of 60+ tested), and that works for me. Use promo code TomSpark for 50% off for life.
Sandboxie: Avoid any further fuckery by throwing the browser into quarantine.

Zero-Bullshit Web Browsing (2020-08-01)