Browser Tips
42 27 April – 10 May 2022 • Issue 630
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Type about:config into Firefox’s address
bar^1 and press Enter. Click ‘Accept the
Risk and Continue’^2 under ‘Proceed with
Caution’. You can untick ‘Warn me when I
attempt to access these preferences’^3 to
hide this message in future.3
Websites will now identify Firefox 99
as version 100. If a site won’t load
properly, you can delay upgrading until the
bug is fixed. Click the menu button, choose
Settings, scroll down to Firefox Updates^1
and select ‘Check for updates but let you
choose to install them’^2.2
Start typing general.useragent.
forceVersion100 into the search box at
the top of the page^1. When you find that
preference, either double-click it or click the
Toggle icon^2 to change its value from ‘false’
to ‘true’^3. Close Firefox and reopen it to
apply the change.CHROMIUM & FIREFOX
Block unwanted cookies
automaticallyCookie consent pop-ups are the bane of
our online lives, and recent research by
the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
found that many websites ignore our
requests anyway. Blatantly disregarding
GDPR rules, 69.7 per cent of the sites
analysed in the study assumed positive
consent before it was given, while 21.3
per cent implanted cookies despite users
rejecting them (www.snipca.com/41497).
To combat this problem, members of
the institute have created an extension
that automatically blocks cookies to stop
sites invading your privacy. It’s called
CookieBlock and is available for Chrome
and other Chromium browsers (www.
snipca.com/41493), Edge (www.snipca.
com/41494) and Firefox (www.snipca.
com/41495).
When you install the add-on, it lets you
choose which types of cookie to block
and allow – for example, you can permitcookies that enable sites to function
properly (see screenshot below left) and
remember your preferences, but prohibit
those that analyse your behaviour, display
targeted ads and follow you around the
web. You can also clean up cookies that
are already saved in your browser, by
clicking the ‘Classify and Remove Stored
Cookies’ button at the bottom of the
options page, and pause cookie removal
if you have trouble loading a site.
Note that CookieBlock doesn’t hide
cookie consent pop-ups, but its creators
suggest using it in conjunction with I
Don’t Care About Cookies (www.snipca.
com/41496), an extension that does
perform that function.CHROMIUM
Identify fake photos of
people online
One of the
creepiest uses
of artificial intelligence (AI) technology is
to generate photos of people who don’t
exist. The results can be used as fake profile
pictures for social-media and dating sites,
and are often very convincing – such as
those created by the Random Face
Generator on the website This Person
Does Not Exist (www.snipca.com/41491).
A new extension called Fake Profile
Detector aims to expose these non-existent
people, so you don’t get fooled into
befriending them or sending them
money (a practice known as ‘catfishing’).
Install the add-on from the Chrome
Web Store at http://www.snipca.com/41492,
then ensure that Windows allows
notifications from your browser. OpenSettings, click System and choose
‘Notifications & actions’, then switch the
slider on under ‘Get notifications from
these apps’. Right-click a photo on a web
page and choose ‘Check fake profile
picture’ (^1 in our screenshot above) to
see if the image is likely to be of a fake
person^2.
The developers of Fake Profile Detector
say the extension only works on photos
generated using StyleGAN, an AI
technology introduced by Nvidia in 2019,
and not on video deepfakes or face swaps.
You may also see a message that the image
can’t be accessed, and be prompted to
open it in a new tab.FIREFOX
Find out if Firefox 100
will break the web
Firefox releases its 100th version on
3 May and, as with Chrome and
Edge’s recent centenaries (see Issue 628,
page 42), there are concerns that the
three-digit version number may stop
some websites loading properly. You canWORKSHOP Test Firefox 100 in Firefox 99
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