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Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

I have a Facebook account, this creates limitations when it comes to blocking (e.g. I cannot use a DNS block/piHole).

What I found works for me is to use Multi-Account Containers with Facebook being forced-open in a specific container (that's only for Facebook) and then using Firefox's built in Content Blocking to block trackers in other containers (Content Blocking -> Custom -> In All Windows).

This allows you to use Facebook but makes it significantly harder for them to track you across other sites (via shadow accounts or your actual profile).

For example this works for Stackoverflow where I see:

> The resource at “https://graph.facebook.com/[xxxx]/picture?type=large” was blocked because content blocking is enabled.

On mobile I simply don't install Facebook's apps and use the mobile web browser and still receive notifications via that.

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I love how browsing the web now is like gearing up for war. Need our anti tank and our anti air of course.

It's kind of terrifying how one sided it is. The only browser that matters for standard setting, the one used by the vast majority of users, is built for and by one of the largest advertising and data collection firm.

Although, the situation will start to unravel very fast for all these companies if people start aggregating the house address, telephone number, social network handles, names of relatives and estimated net worth of everyone who works at these places based on publicly available information, and posts them all in one place. For a change, it will be nice to watch the executives of these companies scramble once they realize exactly how it feels to be on the receiving end of such violations.

And if setting up Multi-Account Containers just for the one scenario of sandboxing Facebook sounds too complicated, Mozilla have put together a Firefox extension that does all the setup for you: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/facebook-cont...

(Which, don't get me wrong, I think MAC is a great feature and use it myself for all sorts of sites. But it can be complicated to get your head wrapped around, particularly if you're not a professional nerd. Which is why this kind of set-it-and-forget-it alternative has some value.)

I'm a huge fan of Firefox's first party isolation (FPI) and using Containers to control Google. FPI kills trackers and Containers allow me to stay logged into certain Google services without having things like my search history tracked.

I was a huge fan too. I had a lot of containers set up on three different machines and they all got wiped out last week. I haven't put in all the work to rebuild them yet and I'm losing the wherewithal to keep putting up with Firefox.

Yeah I lost my main container last week as well.

Containers are okay, but, I wish they had their own database for things like saved passwords and addresses. I still end up using a separate profile for work, because I don't want _anything_ from work on my personal profile. Although, if entire container profiles can disappear with an update, that could be even more of a hassle.

I still don't understand why disabling the MAC extension nukes your settings where seemingly every other extension keeps its settings when toggled.

To be clear though, FPI is the real weapon here against things like Facebook tracking.

This alone won't be sufficient. I have a fake FB account which I haven't used in ages, which has only been accessed from my laptop. Somehow they managed to tie the fake account to my mobile device. I suspect they are using the apps that are constantly pinging graph.facebook.com to build a comprehensive profile of devices and accounts.

When I was visiting a foreign country I began receiving emails from facebook to try and get me to login, with FB marketplace results customized for the region I was in... this was very concerning and shows they are not only collecting vast amounts of data, but they have a good mechanism in place for persistent tracking of devices & users all over the planet

> On mobile I simply don't install Facebook's apps and use the mobile web browser and still receive notifications via that.

And you're also tracked across (basically) all websites, because they all have this "helpful" Like button embedded.

one browser for botnet shit like fb/socials

firefox focus for somewhat botnet-free browsing

On Android, on Firefox you can add NoScript, PrivacyBadger, AdblockPlus (plenty of lists here [1]), and if you go all the way and root it, you can replace the hosts file [2]. I personally use zero FB products, and use NoRoot Firewall with global rule to block 31.13.x.x and a couple of other FB IP ranges. That also means that I exclude myself from WhatsApp and Instagram.

[1]: https://filterlists.com/

[2]: https://someonewhocares.org/hosts/

Add Decentraleyes, self-destructing cookies, and randomized user agent.

If SO wanted to make a goodwill gesture they'd get rid of ajax.googleapis.com for their jQuery source. It's 2019, just replace it with vanilla.

Why use AdBlock Plus (an advertising industry product) instead of uBlock Origin? It's compatible but massively more efficient.

Alternatively there's https://facebookcorewwwi.onion

> I have a Facebook account, this creates limitations when it comes to blocking (e.g. I cannot use a DNS block/piHole).

Why not? I have an actively used Facebook account, and also run all my traffic through PiHole.

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