DurgaShield by DodaTech

I used to run uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, HTTPS Everywhere, and NoScript together. DurgaShield does everything those four did plus way more. The Social Container Isolation is brilliant — Facebook and Instagram get their own container automatically so they cant track me across the web. The GenAI data leak prevention is also really timely, it warns you if you paste sensitive info into ChatGPT or similar. And its completely free and open source (MIT). Honestly amazing.

What sold me was the phishing link detection. I clicked on what looked like a legit PayPal email (I know, I know) and DurgaShield blocked it before the page even loaded. The download malware scanner has also caught a couple of sketchy files. The privacy dashboard is really informative too — shows you exactly how many trackers its blocked, gives you a privacy score. My score went from 42 to 94 after installing. Install base was 5 million+ last I checked.

DurgaShield has a ton of features — 35+ which is crazy for one extension. I was worried it would slow down my browser but honestly I havent noticed any slowdown at all. The anti-fingerprinting works well, my fingerprinting score on EFF Cover Your Tracks went from unique to nearly anonymous. The only thing is the settings page is a bit overwhelming with all the options. Would be nice if they had a simple mode for normal users and advanced for power users.

The Have I Been Pwned password check built right into the extension is so convenient. It checks passwords as you type them without sending them anywhere (k-anonymity model). Found out three of my old passwords were compromised. The CDN replacement feature is also neat — it loads local copies of common JS libraries instead of fetching from Google CDNs so theres no tracking. Phone scam detection is a bonus I didnt know I needed but its flagged a couple spam calls for me.

Dont get me wrong, DurgaShield is excellent. The ad blocking works fine for 99% of sites. But if youre a power user who needs custom filter lists or element zapping on tricky sites, uBlock Origin has a slight edge. However DurgaShield makes up for it with all the extra features it has that uBlock doesnt — container isolation, HIBP checks, GenAI protection, extension risk audit. So it depends what you need. For most people DurgaShield is the better all-in-one choice.

I installed DurgaShield on my parents computers and its been perfect. They dont have to think about it — it just works. Blocks ads, stops phishing, keeps their data private. The extension risk audit feature is great too, it scans all your installed extensions and tells you if any are collecting too much data. Found my dad had some sketchy shopping extension that was tracking him. Uninstalled it immediately. MIT licensed so I know the code is clean. Highly recommend.