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by buro9 3905 days ago
This is also why you should segregate your browsing to different browsers and different browsing modes.

I personally now use two browsers for different reasons:

* Chrome = Gmail, Drive, Docs, Search that I wanted tracked (work related usually)

* Chrome Incognito = Social media (Twitter, Instagram) and sites I stay on most of the time (HN)

* Firefox Private Browsing = Search that I do not want tracked (shopping research usually), shopping, news sites, media sites, LinkedIn

One can also view these in terms of cookie/data retention periods:

* Chrome = +1 week

* Chrome Incognito = 1 day maximum

* Firefox Private Browsing = Session (created and destroyed for a specific purpose, short-lived)

And yes, it's not convenient as if I get an email with a link in it I will copy the link into the appropriate browser and then browse to it. But then the upside is that I don't get tracked relentless by tracking stuff that expects cookies.

Oh, and I'm aware of IP tracking too. I tend to use PIA VPN for this reason and do not autoconnect to the closest place, but instead semi-randomly pick somewhere in Europe to surface from each day.

4 comments

I do similar:

* Chromium = google services only

* Firefox = work, normal browsing (e.g. HN)

* Firejailed firefox = useful for sites too broken in regular Firefox

Both Chromium and FF are set to destroy cookies upon session termination and block third party cookies. I use uBlock Origin in "default deny"[0] mode which blocks all third party content by default. I never sign into accounts from google, twitter, linkedin, or any other advertiser purveyor within FF.

The firejailed firefox is for such advertising purveyors and/or for sites which are cumbersome to make work properly by selective whitelisting in uBlock origin. I use firejail, rather than incognito / private browsing, so that the browser will behave exactly as if it were freshly installed when I visit these sites. Some settings (and in the case of FF, add-ons) will impact incognito/private browsing; firejail allows me to run a browser "wide open" safely.

[0] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic-filtering:-de...

Firejail looks great, I did not know about that. Thanks.
Love this, and this is similar to how I surf,

  Chrome + umatrix = Legit news and Google sites 
  Opera = Facebook, Instagram
  Firefox + FoxyProxy + Ghostery + noscript = Shady places
Something which might be useful if you want to do this: you can use Firefox with multiple profiles, by starting it with the '-P <profile-name>' option.
Chrome also has multiple profile feature.
google chrome has a multiple user option with quick switching, i have multiple profiles with different settings / extensions suited to mode.

saves the time to login to accounts [unless thats the whole point for you].