My 5 must-have extensions for Firefox on Android (and what I use them for)

Firefox is an outstanding choice for your default Android browser. It’s safer Chrome browser and offers a lot of features. One such feature is extensions. That’s right, Firefox is one of the few mobile browsers with extensions, and for anyone who uses them, it’s a breath of fresh air.

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Extensions enhance your browser’s feature set to improve security, efficiency, and usability. I want to share with you the above extensions that I find are must-haves for anyone using Firefox Android.

Install extensions

Before starting the list, I want to mention how to install the extension. It’s quite easy. Tap the menu button (in the upper right corner of the Firefox window) and tap Extensions. From within Extension Manager, find the extension you want. Then tap the relevant + button to install whatever you need and agree to the installation by tapping Add (when prompted).

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Each of these extensions is freely available and free to use. And that’s all it takes to install the extension on Firefox mobile. And now, onto the list.

1. ClearURL

Simply put, ClearURLs removes tracking elements from URLs. This is one of the first extensions I recommend because it helps protect your privacy when browsing the internet. ClearURLs also makes it easy to share URLs with others — without having to remove the address’s tracking elements.

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The extension can be enabled for both regular and private browsing, allows domain blocking, bypasses cleanup on the local server, prevents tracking from being included in the history API, displays an item in the context menu, block hyperlink inspection and filter the ETag header from requests. You can also enable badges, statistics, and even see how many elements have been blocked.

2. NoScript Security Suite

NoScript Security Suite is one of the best security extensions for mobile Firefox. This extension protects against cross-site scripting attacks, cross-zone DNS recovery, CSRF attacks, and ClickJacking attempts. NoScript Security Suite can run in regular and private modes, and has extensive settings for permissions, appearance, and advanced settings per site, such as eliminating suspicious requests across multiple sites. website and identity leak protection across multiple tabs. You can even add individual websites to NoScript Security Suite and customize their permissions. You can also say certain websites can run JavaScript, Flash, and other types of executable content.

3. Dark reader

If you’re a fan of dark mode, you’ll want this extension. Dark Reader works on most websites — even if Android’s dark mode doesn’t — to invert light colors on websites. If you often pick up your phone in the middle of the night and browse websites, you’ve probably encountered websites that don’t work properly with Android’s built-in dark mode. This extension solves that problem.

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In terms of settings, you can customize Dark Reader on a site-by-site basis or globally. You can access Dark Reader settings by tapping the menu button in the upper right corner > Extensions > Dark Reader. On that page, you can customize the extension as needed.

4. Fix video background play error

Have you ever opened a video stream and listened to the content’s output while doing something else on your phone? Without the Video Background Play Fix, playback will stop when you try to do something else. With this extension, you can listen to audio in the background while doing something else in another window. As long as the video continues to play, you’ll still hear the sound, no matter what you do on your phone. Background playback on YouTube is a premium feature, but you can get it for free here. Like Dark Reader, there isn’t much in the way of settings (other than permissions and enabling extensions in private browsing).

5. Magic

No one likes things that slow down website performance, such as ads and tracking cookies. With Ghostery, those are blocked. Ghostery also automatically removes intrusive cookie pop-ups and takes a stand against online tracking. With this extension, you can easily manage ad blocking, anti-tracking, and delete cookies with just one tap. You don’t have to worry about configuring Ghostery because it just works. There are no settings to deal with (other than allowing it to run in private mode and the usual permissions), so there’s no learning curve. Add the extension to Firefox and it works in the background to keep you safe.

That’s it. With these five extensions, your Firefox Mobile browser is secure, private, and easier to use. Consider these extensions a must for any version of Firefox for Android you use.