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My New Browser Setup

Posted on 17 March 2023

Categories: Software

I have a new browser setup on my desktop to increase my privacy and convenience. It is divided into two profiles that perform differently based on what I need to do in the moment.

What is it?

I use Librewolf as my browser. It is a fork of Firefox that is enhanced for privacy without heavily impacting user experience. I divided it into two profiles:

1. Accounts (instances in which I need to login)
2. Browsing (general website browsing)

Let me walk through how each profile is setup.

Profile Setup

Firstly, let me talk about common settings between both profiles.

Common In Both

On both profiles, I have my settings to optimize my privacy. On Firefox-based browsers, it is very easy to use these settings because most of them have little impact on convenience. I use Brave Search as my search engine and will switch to my own SearX instance when I get a good server. In terms of extensions, I have the 'uBlock Origin' extension installed setup to block JavaScript and remote fonts by default. I have the default lists along all the others unchecked by default apart from language lists. I block every single domain from Google, Facebook, Microsoft and other websites which are known for tracking. If a website breaks, I whitelist that website in particular.

Accounts Profile

My accounts profile is optimized to work well with day-to-day logins and important websites. I use this profile for all websites where I can login like Google or Microsoft.

I use the following extensions:

1. Cookie AutoDelete
   • Enabled with whitelisting to auto-delete cookies for websites which I open by accident.
   • Using extension instead of Librewolf's built-in setting because it currently does not work for me.
2. Containers
   • For multiple accounts

Browsing Profile

My browsing profile runs in permanent private browsing mode so my cookies, cache and browsing history are automatically deleted when I close my browser. I use it for general web browsing like watching videos, viewing articles and more. I have most of the content I like in an RSS feed but this profile is useful for some websites which either do not have an RSS feed or I only need to use once.

For this profile, I use these extensions:

1. Dark Reader
   • 'Invert Listed Only' mode turned on because most websites I use have dark mode turned on already.
2. LibRedirect
   • To redirect common websites to their free, libre and open-source frontends.
   • Some examples are:
     • YouTube --> Invidious
     • Twitter --> Nitter
     • Reddit --> LibReddit
     • Medium --> Scribe
     • Wikipedia --> Wikiless
   • I highly recommend everyone to do the same because these frontends are lightweight and do not use JavaScript which makes them load swiftly.

Conclusion

This setup has been serving me extremely well. I will continue using this setup and building on it if any specific need arises.

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