Lemmy helping Lemmy World browse the web

Noble_Stacking_1337@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 103 points –

I thought it would be helpful for all the good people of Lemmy World if we shared our browser setups.

I'm mostly a laptop user when it comes to the Internet. I've been using Firefox with the Ublock Origin addon and it makes browsing the web so much less ad filled.

For youtube specifically I've had the best results with Chrome and an extension called Clear Skies for ad skipping.

Share you own browser setup. What do you use to surf the wild waves of the web to avoid the sharks and the sharp rocks?

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Daily Driver - Vivaldi with any applicable EFF plugins and custom settings aimed at security and privacy.

2nd Daily Driver (usually on a separate screen) - Firefox configured with any applicable EFF plugins and settings put at the most restrictive and forgetful to facilitate privacy and security.

Mobile - Literally the same as above to the extent i have the ability to ^^

Why would you have 2 daily drivers?

Tracking mostly. If i need to visit a site that i want to know the absolute minimum about me or my accounts, i use Firefox. Vivaldi is secured well, but I'm logged in to various accounts for convenience there. I have a 3 monitor set up so it's easy to just have it open on a separate screen.

Just switch user agents

How do you mean?

A user agent is a string it sends the website you're connecting to so it can know what rendering engine you have and which browser you use and so on. But, the dark side of user agents is that websites can use this to track you. So, if you don't want them to do so you can change it either manually or by using a browser extension. I recommend you to make your user agent look like chrome's, as this is the most popular browser and you will not be tracked as easily.

I don't know.. Sounds like I'd have to trust another extension to do the user agent stuff in the background... I'm sure that's a solid solution for a lot of use cases, but i might just keep my method for now.

Instead of forget everything I recommend to keep session and create cookie exceptions for selected sites. So you will stay logged in there and have a normally working browser, that is just as private

Good advice, but for how i have my workflow set up, it makes more sense for me to have it set on full amnesia. Vivaldi is what i use if i need persistence.

You can use profiles if you want different use cases. I dont think "increased attack surface" is the biggest problem, but you have 2 browsers that are both updated, take up RAM etc.

You could just use different Firefox profiles, using a custom desktop entry with actions and one action for every profile, example:

::: spoiler desktop entry

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Firefox
Comment=Web Browser
GenericName=Web Browser
Exec=firefox %u
Type=Application
Icon=firefox
Categories=Network;WebBrowser;
MimeType=text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml+xml;application/vnd.mozilla.xul+xml;application/rss+xml;application/rdf+xml;image/gif;image/jpeg;image/png;x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https;
Actions=Private;Work;PrivateWindow;Insecure

[Desktop Action Private]
Name=Open Private Profile
Exec=firefox -p private %u

[Desktop Action Work]
Name=Open Work Profile
Exec=firefox -p work %u

[Desktop Action PrivateWindow]
Name=Open Private Window
Exec=firefox -p private --private-window %u

[Desktop Action Insecure]
Name=Open Insecure Profile
Exec=mullvad-exclude firefox -p insecure %u

:::

This was so cool to find out, and in KDE (and likely other desktops) you can access those actions using right click.

You can also change such a workflow to do

launch app && rm -rf ~/appdirectory which will enforce to always delete everything without needing to trust that app. I do that for the flatpak app "Decoder" which is great but wants to save a history without an opt-out, and as I use it for password sharing (generate a QR code locally on my phone)