Browser Compartmentalization: Minimize tracking and boost your privacy...

This is a practice I find extremely useful from a privacy and security perspective.

For those who are unaware, Browser Compartmentalization (also called Browser Isolation) is simply dedicating a browser for a particular type of activity. This will therefore require that you install multiple browsers in your system.

I always have 5 or 6 browsers installed as follows:

1. Browser 1: For my emails and cloud files.
2. Browser 2: For my online search activities without an account.
3. Browser 3: For my social media accounts.
4. Browser 4: For my online shopping accounts.
5. Browser 5: For YouTube and other search activities with an account.
6. Browser 6: For banking and financial activities.

Browsers 2 & 6 are set to automatically delete all temp files upon close.

This allows me to minimize tracking and boost my privacy and security, whilst keeping essential cookies to avoid having to login everytime.

I use a couple of extensions in some of the browsers, especially in browsers 2 & 5:

1. Enhancer for YouTube
2. uBlock Origin
3. Microsoft Defender

If you do not want to use too many browsers, you can still reduce tracking by using multiple profiles within each browser.

For detailed understanding, check this out:


You should check out his YouTube channel:

Rob Braxman Tech

There are excellent videos focused on privacy and security, and how large Corporations like Google, Facebook, Apple and others are exploiting users.

Hope this helps.

.

Here are some uBlock filters to remove annoying banners (you can copy and paste these lines under uBlock Settings/ Filters):

stackexchange.com##.js-consent-banner
superuser.com##.js-consent-banner
stackoverflow.com##.js-consent-banner
mathoverflow.net##.js-consent-banner
serverfault.com##.js-consent-banner
askubuntu.com##.js-consent-banner
stackapps.com##.js-consent-banner
unix.stackexchange.com##.js-consent-banner

This was interesting to read. Do you still do this now in 2025?

Firefox has containers which do a similar thing but all within the one browser.

best of luck, Steve ..

@XxXxX Oh, that's helpful. Thx. :)

I was wondering about what kind of options might be available nowadays. I've always cleared my browser often, sometimes even multiple times a day depending on what I've been doing. (It never occurred to me to use different browsers like OP said, and I never knew about containers.) I was just used to relying on bookmarks or retyping URLs whenever I wanted to go back to a particular site/page.

I didn't know until just recently that my husband was using the browser on his old computer much differently. He rarely ever cleared it because he doesn't want to use bookmarks and doesn't like having to retype the URLs. He likes when he only has to type just a few letters for the browser to immediately suggest where he was before. (I was quite surprised. I never knew he wasn't using bookmarks. I thought he was just keeping the bookmarks bar hidden from view to keep his browser tabs uncluttered.)

In this day and age, I was thinking that clearing the browser would be an important thing to do often. But since he's not keen on that because of the inconvenience it leads to, maybe these ideas of compartmentalization or containers could be helpful (so that one gets cleared often while the other [for his most regular stuff] doesn't). I definitely want to look into it more...

on my system i have the browser cache folder for Edge browser on a RAM drive along with the system swap file.
the swap file is set to be cleared every restart. this means both are being used and working from protected RAM not on the system drive.

i also have an extension called Cookie Auto Delete were i save the cookies for the sites i want to save them for every other cookie for other sites they get auto deleted/cleared in 10 seconds after they have loaded in to the browser. you just have to remember to save the cookies you want.

along with malwarebytes browser guard, duckduckgo browser protection and uBlock lite to keep things i don't want away.
i use AVG Internet Security suite backed up with Windows defender as Windows defender works directly within the Edge browser.
Edge browser also uses a VPN, its basic but it works. all DNS is done by Cloudflare WARP using HTTPS along with all web pages in HTTPS.

its just my way over the years to keep the browser and system as clear of nasties that i can on my and my wife's computers.
its worked thus far.

best of luck, Steve ..

@XxXxX Wow, that's a lot of different things you use. I was only ever used to keeping the settings strict in the browser, clearing it often, and not using extensions (except Kaspersky's for adblocking, since I didn't know anything about extensions or how to tell if they are safe or not). It was only ever being strict with the browser plus a paid version of Kaspersky for many years.

What you wrote about what you do went mostly over my head, I think. I'd really like to understand it better, though. When we built my husband's new computer, we put in 2 sticks of RAM (8GB each). But you spoke of a RAM drive. Is that something different?

That extension for cookie handling -I like what it does for you. I'd love to have that or something similar for us here. But what happens when it deletes the cookies you don't want saved? Do those webpages detect that the cookie suddenly isn't there and keep trying to save them on your system over and over again until you finally leave that webpage/site?

a RAM drive is a virtual drive but stored in RAM. RAM is faster then any other type of drive. my system(s) have 64GB of DDR4 3200 Ram each.
every time you visit a site or the same site again it will load cookies. Cookie Auto Deletes just makes sure they don't stay on the system for very long. its a continuous process. the ones you want to keep remain on the system for use each and every time they are needed.

best of luck, Steve ..

I actually block the whole internet and I allow only FB for LibreWolf and Google/Youtube for Brave.
You can do the same for banking and use a portable browser, so no possible malware in temp.
Additionally, block all ports except 443. 53 can be used for DNS leaks and 80 is unencrypted.

XxXxX said:

i also have an extension called Cookie Auto Delete

Click to expand...

Which one do you use, a search brings up several?

trevo said:

Which one do you use, a search brings up several?

Click to expand...

this one, its also available on Chrome and Firefox.

best of luck, Steve ..

XxXxX said:

this one, its also available on Chrome and Firefox.

Cookie AutoDelete - Microsoft Edge Add-ons

Make Microsoft Edge your own with extensions that help you personalize the browser and be more productive.

microsoftedge.microsoft.com

best of luck, Steve ..

Click to expand...

Thanks.

XxXxX said:

this one, its also available on Chrome and Firefox.

Cookie AutoDelete - Microsoft Edge Add-ons

Make Microsoft Edge your own with extensions that help you personalize the browser and be more productive.

microsoftedge.microsoft.com

best of luck, Steve ..

Click to expand...

I've been using it for years on Firefox on both desktop and laptop. I do backup/restore to keep both systems in sync.