Have not seen this posted here and I believe it is new. Tried it out yesterday and could be very useful and protect people from fake websites etc so I thought I would share.
FMHY SafeGuard is a browser extension that keeps you safe by checking websites against the latest filterlists from FMHY Filterlist. The extension categorizes websites as starred, safe, unsafe, or potentially dangerous, giving you peace of mind while browsing.
Key Features
- Real-time Site Status: Instant feedback on whether a site is starred, safe, unsafe, or potentially unsafe, with visual toolbar icons.
- Updated Filterlists: Utilizes the frequently updated FMHY filterlist to ensure protection from the latest unsafe domains.
- Pop-up Alerts: Get easy-to-read pop-ups that inform you about the site status and allow further action.
Is the database of websites installed locally in the extension or is it calling home for every website I visit?
all three filter lists are fetched once and kept in memory when the extension is initialized (from what i can tell this happens when the browser starts), and then that local copy is used to match URLs.
For reference, the source file is background.js
URLs at the top, init calls at the bottom, and above that the event registering stuff (tab nav and nav).
Looks like the block list itself is maintained here
Honestly if your going to use this, its better to just add the list to ublock, then add another extension which makes your browser more fingerprintable or, better yet, add the list to your pihole or DNS filter service.
I think the target audience of this is the people who wouldn’t know how to add a list to ublock let alone having a DNS filter service or people just jumping back into piracy but yea your point stands.
I don’t think your giving people much credit. Anyone on here who can bind their VPN to their torrent client can easily handle this.
I mean the filter list github literally provides instruction. So does ublock, so does pretty much any DNS filtering service.
This isn’t rocket science. All it takes is like 2% effort.
I wanted to ask you how does such an extension make your browser more fingerprintable.
I’m still interested in an answer, but after looking at the code there’s a (actually not so) surprising turn: this thing sinply cannot live without remotely loaded google fonts (at addon startup) for some fucking reason.
that technically shouldn’t make you more fingerprintable, but the extension makes sure google is notified that you opened your browser.
I am not an expert so I would highly recommend looking into more credible sources but my guess would be, since this is most likely not a very popular add-on, any browser with it would stand out considerably more relative to not having it.
Typically its common for browsers that want to reduce fingerprinting (tor, mullvad etc) recommend not installing new addons as then you stand out from crowd.
I’d say, since there are so many alternative ways to get this filter list, even if its a marginal increase in fingerprinting, its not worth installing it as an add-on.
since this is most likely not a very popular add-on, any browser with it would stand out considerably more relative to not having it.
websites cannot look at the list of your addons. they have to detect the presence of each, which is mostly possible when the addon makes changes to the page content, or replaces browser APIs in certain ways.
Typically its common for browsers that want to reduce fingerprinting (tor, mullvad etc) recommend not installing new addons as then you stand out from crowd.
because if an addon does something that a website can detect, that’ll make you stand out
I am not an expert
If you were, you would know that a website has no way to see what extensions you have installed, unless those extensions modify the page in a way that JavaScript can detect.
No thanks, I’ll use their list of links and leave it at that. No reason to add yet another extension to tell me that whitehouse.com isn’t the site I’m looking for.
