Arkenfox user.js
Shares rank 2 of 3 browser configs by recommenders
Recommended for hardening Firefox against fingerprinting and tracking, doing more than default settings. Caveat: many settings don't work as expected.
Recommended for hardening Firefox against fingerprinting and tracking, doing more than default settings. Caveat: many settings don't work as expected.
7 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 71%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 2.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Goes beyond default privacy settings
“The Arkenfox user.js does all of this and more, but these options are not enabled by default.”
Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Owners, not renters: Mozilla's open source AI strategy” “The Arkenfox user.js user profile does this and more to mitigate fingerprinting.”
Comment from 3 Mar 2026 in “I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services” “probably as good as it gets in terms of privacy”
Comment from 22 Nov 2025 in “The privacy nightmare of browser fingerprinting” Mitigates browser fingerprinting
“it should, by default, use the Arkenfox settings (report spoofed values for language, screen size, fonts”
Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “Firefox Getting New Controls to Turn Off AI Features” “The Arkenfox user.js user profile does this and more to mitigate fingerprinting.”
Comment from 3 Mar 2026 in “I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Script seems to trigger a stop
“there seems to be something about the script that is triggering you to stop”
Comment from 26 Apr 2026 in “Tell HN: Claude Code is unable to respond to this request”
Other browser configs people recommend
The two most recommended other browser configs, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Just the Browser | 6 | 11 | 35% | 2 | — | — |
| Arkenfox user.jsThis page | 5 | 2 | 71% | 6 | — | — |
| BetterFox | 5 | 0 | 100% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
All 11 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I use user.js to disable the suggestions, but this doesn't help on initial install and running of Firefox.”
“there seems to be something about the script that is triggering you to stop”
“The Arkenfox user.js user profile does this and more to mitigate fingerprinting.”
“If you find Tor usable, then Firefox with this config should be fine.”
“it should, by default, use the Arkenfox settings (report spoofed values for language, screen size, fonts”
“The Arkenfox user.js does all of this and more, but these options are not enabled by default.”
“Many settings don't work as expected, there are unintended consequences”
“No. It's LARP. You either don't care or go with Tor Browser and/or commercial antidetect browsers.”
“probably as good as it gets in terms of privacy”
“use something like arkenfox”
“You store browser preferences in it and firefox copies said preferences to prefs.js on startup”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.