My Favorite Firefox Extensions for Android
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Firefox is among the rare web browsers that support Android extensions. For this reason alone, it is worth using instead of Google Chrome. Extensions can improve your browsing experience by adding useful features like blocking data trackers, easier ways to browse poorly optimized mobile websites, and even ways to hide certain websites from Google search. These are my favorite Firefox add-ons for your Android phone.
Remove tracking from links
Almost every link you click has tracking parameters attached at the end. Websites use them to find out how you got to a particular page, and they can be used to profile your activity and track your browsing habits. Stop this tracking with ClearURLs , a simple extension that removes tracking from links.
Block ads and data trackers
uBlock Origin has been one of my favorite extensions for over a decade. It blocks ads and data trackers, but also has hidden features such as the ability to block cookie banners .
Don’t let yourself waste time
If you find yourself scrolling through events, install Leechblock NG , which allows you to block specific websites from Firefox. It allows you to block entire domains or even block websites containing specific keywords. You can also ask this extension to add a delay when opening certain websites. This is a great temporary solution, but for more permanent help, take my colleague Justin Poth’s advice on why you rewind and how you can break the habit.
Skip YouTube Sponsorship
For those of us who have ditched the YouTube app and moved to the mobile website, SponsorBlock is a godsend. It uses crowdsourced information to allow you to skip sponsored segments in various videos, and can also skip past intros or calls to subscribe.
Play YouTube videos in the background
If you don’t have YouTube Premium, you can still play videos in the background using the Video Background Play Fix extension for Firefox. It also works with Vimeo. While this extension is great for YouTube, YouTube Music’s background playing capabilities are mixed. Sometimes this works, but not always. The developers don’t claim support for YouTube Music, which means this extension still does what it says in its description.
Switch to an eye-pleasing theme
As a migraine sufferer, I am sensitive to bright light, including white backgrounds. Some websites support dark mode, but many still don’t, and you can fix that with Dark Reader . This extension works well, but is known to cause slow page loading and poor performance on some Android phones. If this happens to you more often, try Firefox’s built-in reading mode, which has a dark theme and helps you read articles without distractions.
A Few of My Favorite Reddit Extensions
I’m not a big fan of the timeline layout in the official Reddit app, so I switched to the mobile website, although it’s not a perfect solution. To improve your experience, I recommend the following extensions:
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Reddit Annoyances : Allows you to remove the annoying “View in Reddit App” banner and even allows you to remove the fixed header that displays the Reddit logo at the top.
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Reddit Account Age : Displays the age of any Reddit account next to the username. Bots or spammers often use new accounts, and these extensions make them easier to detect.
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Legacy Reddit redirect : Loads links using the legacy Reddit layout. This makes the experience worse on mobile devices since the site is not optimized for it properly, but many still prefer this design as it prevents doom scrolling and allows pages to load that Reddit blocks on the current mobile site (such as “unverified content”) .
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Reddit Enhancement Suite : Adds many features to the legacy Reddit website. Has great features like the ability to hide all child comments (replies to top-level comments), filter subreddits, and make spam reporting easier.
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Reddit NSFW Unblocker : Reddit is currently blocking NSFW content on the mobile website because the content is “unverified”. This extension allows you to bypass all these blocks without using the legacy Reddit site.
View archived versions of websites
You can use the View Page Archive extension to download archived versions of web pages. The extension supports Wayback Machine and Archive.is , as well as other search engines that archive content.
Block websites from Google search
With the advent of AI and SEO farms, using Google Search is getting a little more complicated . When I see sites with unhelpful results in my feed, uBlacklist helps me block them from appearing in future Google search results with one tap. This is a great extension that makes search results much more useful.