To find your profile folder, click on the menu top right, on `Help -> Troubleshooting Information`. You can directly open your **Profile Directory** from there or see it, typically it's something like `$HOME/.mozilla/firefox/...` or in Windows `%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\...`
* Install [arkenfox](https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/releases) (copy to your Firefox profile)
* Copy `user-overrides.js` also into your Firefox profile folder
* Change any setting if needed, e.g. not clean history?
* Apply the `user-overrides.js` by running `./updater.sh` or the `.bat` file on Windows in the Firefox profile folder
* Remove unnecessary search engines and apply your own or use DuckDuckGo/Startpage
In addition, some of those extensions will also greatly improve your user experience: fewer ads, faster page loads. Remember, you can also switch them off (disable), you don't need to uninstall.
**Hint**: Extensions impacting redirects or cookies _might_ lead to malfunctioning of some websites. If you encounter this, it's **recommended to disable them _per page_** and **NOT** globally! First could shot can be setting an exception for a page inside uBlock.!
* Import the `ublock.txt` in the "My Filter" menu for proper settings from the [extension_settings/](./../browser_extension_settings/) folder within the extension.
### Advanced, but highly recommended extensions / software to use
Use a password manager and don't store or synchronize your passwords within internal browser functionality, e.g., `KeePassXC` or `Bitwarden` with a custom provider
If not possible in another way, you can add them via [Add custom search engine](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/add-custom-search-engine/). Just follow instructions after installing and opening the extension.
For most search engines, you can also store your preferences inside the URL itself. This is great for having the same experience across devices and if you clear any cookies when your browser shuts down. Make sure that you have those preferences in when you save as a new search engine.
You should also prefer `POST` over `GET`. Depending if there's a `%s` in the URL, it's using `GET`. If it's not present in the examples below, make sure to hit the _Advanced settings_ when adding it as search engine and check `POST`. Then provide `q={searchTerms}` in the input field.
Be sure to add shortcuts to be used in your navigation bar, e.g. `@ddg` refers to DuckDuckGo search engine and directly issues searches to DuckDuckGo from the navigation bar and does not use the default search engine, but your default!
Besides securing Firefox, you should consider not using the DNS servers of your Internet provider and instead install system-wide [DNS alternatives](https://www.kuketz-blog.de/empfehlungsecke/#dns) or a [local DNS server](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Unbound) which directly queries root DNS servers. There's really no downside of this.
