Ubuntu Tutorials

This evening I got to thinking about web browsers and privacy. Privacy is, of course, a regular concern for many of us and there are many different “solutions” out there. Recently web browsers have been adding privacy modes, which allow us to browse the web without storing a lot of cookies, history, etc. Google Chrome (or Chromium) provide the “Incognito” mode, which allows for private browsing. This mode can be launched using the key combination “shift-ctrl-n” or selecting “New Incognito Window” from the menu. The only missing piece is until recently there hasn’t been a way to launch this mode by default.

In this article I will outline how to update your system to launch Google Chrome’s Incognito mode by default. This includes launching it from the Applications menu as well as making it the default when opening new links.

Step 1:

Edit your Application menu entry for Google Chrome (or Chromium) using the ‘alacarte’ application. You can launch this command directly or right-click on the Applications menu and “Edit Menu”. Navigate to “Internet” section and select the Google Chrome (or Chromium) entry.

Once selected, simply double-click the item to open its properties and update the command, description or title.

As you can see from the screenshot above, the addition you’ll want to make is the “--incognito” between the existing chromium and %U. This will update the Applications menu, essentially setting Incognito mode as the default when launching this application new.

Step 2:

In addition, if you want links to be opened in Incognito mode you’ll also need to update your Preferred Applications configuration. This is done in the Preferences > Preferred Applications. This is assuming that Google Chrome (or Chromium) is set as your default. In the screenshot below, you’ll see that we’ll essentially make the same change as we did above.

Conclusion

These two simple steps will configure your browser to perpetual private mode. From my searching, I couldn’t find any documentation specific to Linux, so here it is. I hope you find it helpful!

The other day I decided I would try out the Chromium Browser again on Linux. It has been some time since I tried it–the last time it hardly rendered text properly–so I was very happy to see that it has improved significantly! When I say significantly I mean it is now my default browser, and has been for over a week. I don’t believe I have had any crashes (I can’t recall any as I write this), and everything that I expect to work has worked just fine. This includes flash, javascript, tabs, https, etc, etc. I trust it enough to write this post and not crash and lose my progress.

For those that haven’t tried it out yet, I would invite you to do so. I’ve outlined instructions below on how to use the chromium-daily PPA to update and use the latest nightly builds.

Configure PPA

Append the following line to your /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

You can also import the package signing key using the command:

sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 4E5E17B5

You’ll have to refresh your package list, but then you’ll be able to install the Chromium Browser and you’ll receive updates daily.

sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude install chromium-browser

Thoughts?

What are your thoughts on Chromium? Do you like it? Is it faster? I’m sure many of you will mention that its lack of plugins as compared to Firefox is holding you back, but that is on the horizon. Let me know what you like and what you don’t like, and if you’ve had as much success as I have.