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Showing posts from May, 2026

Isolating Graphical Software (Part 1)

I’ve really been missing the experience of Qubes OS, where all programs are properly isolated. However, I can’t install it on my daily driver because I use that machine for gaming. Instead, I’ve been exploring ways to approximate that isolation on a standard Linux setup. Firefox Profiles Let’s start with the browser. There are many privacy and security benefits to separating profiles. My general workflow is as follows: I create separate .desktop files to run Firefox with different profiles. Each file uses a unique --name and StartupWMClass= . This prevents the icons from stacking together on the GNOME Panel. I use ImageMagick to tint the icons so I can tell the profiles apart at a glance: magick input.png -colorspace gray -fill "#cc0000" -tint 100 output.png The “new” Firefox profile manager didn’t work well for me. For example, I couldn’t set a default profile for opening external URLs. I eventually had to switch back to the old profile management style. However, whil...