this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2021
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Privacy

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submitted 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

Hi there, I just have a quick (and newbie) privacy related question I'm hoping someone with more knowledge than me can provide a constructive answer on.

If I have installed several browsers on my machine, is using them for different purposes a good way to circumvent data gathering on my browsing behavior? For example, I have chrome downloaded where I do all my Google related work in (gmail, YT, and a work application that requires chrome), but that is the only thing I use the chrome browser for. I do all my personal browsing in Firefox with a litany of extensions meant to prevent trackers. Is it reasonable to assume that Chrome cannot track activity in Firefox?

EDIT: I just wanted to say thank you to this community. There have been some really nice suggestions and no one has said anything nasty which is nice for a change lol. Cheers.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (2 children)

While using multiple browsers can be a good idea, I'd still steer away from Chrome as it can do shady stuff in the background even if not "opened" (don't have any sort of evidence it does, but still, something to consider), since it is a desktop app.

You should definitely look into Multi-Account containers in Firefox. These allow you to essentially have separate "browsers" (different registries for cookies, storage, etc), which is not only useful for practical purposes but also for privacy ones, even if they are not fingerprinting-proof solutions.
I do, however, have a "Firefox Focus" profile that uses the minimum amount of extensions, has all the nice fingerprinting toggles and has Temporary Containers set on strict. It is really really neat.


Edit: add links

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 years ago (1 children)

a good suggestion would also be to enable dFPI, so that cookies and website data is separated without needing an extension.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 years ago

Yup, for sure! Forgot about it :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (2 children)

Okay nice, I really like the suggestion here. I had heard about containers in Firefox but never actually looked into them, so will do.

Unfortunately I can’t get rid of Chrome completely since a web app I have to use requires Chrome (for whatever reason, it’s a bit predatory if you ask me).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 years ago

Nice! Lemme know how it goes :D

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 years ago (3 children)

Unfortunately I can’t get rid of Chrome completely since a web app I have to use requires Chrome

Have you tried Ungoogled Chromium? I use it for sites that require me to use Chrome (like MS Teams), it's better than Chrome for privacy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 children)

Oh smart dude! I used to use chromium on Linux way back in the day. Totally forgot about it. I’ll give that a shot and check functionality today.

EDIT: I'm on an M1 Pro macbook, and while the chromium for intel works fine, the chromium for mac arm gives the warning that the application is damaged and should be moved to the trash. Unfortunately no current working build for Mac ARM.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 years ago (1 children)

it is likely that the app is not actually damaged, on M1 macs gatekeeper is far more aggressive and apple really wants devs to pay for notarization.

see a comment on the issue from the devs, and a possible workaround (the quarantine part for M1). as the maintainer of a project on osx I share their sentiment, it's fucked up..

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 years ago

Damn that is pretty fucked up. Thanks for the information!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 years ago

I dislike how Ungoogled Chromium doesn't update easily, nor updating the extensions is easy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 years ago

Yup good suggestion

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 years ago

Good suggestions, but I don't think firejail should be recommended. My reasoning is because firejail requires suid, which can open your system up to privilege escalation holes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 years ago

When I looked into Flatpaks, depending on the access configuration, it seemed to me they can still have a lot of permissions to your file system. It didn't look to me that Flatpaks were safe enough.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 years ago

Use profiles and temporary containers.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 years ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 years ago

Oh very nice. Great explanation.