This article is about installing Firejail on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed or Leap.
What is Firejail
Firejail is a security sandbox. Millions of trackers bombard our web browsers while we are online and therefore, I do most of my browsing by isolating it with Firejail.
Install and configure Firejail
YAST Software Management has Firejail in the repositories so a quick search is all that’s needed to find and install everything. Once installed, a “user” must be added to the firejail group. Here is the command which needs to be typed into the terminal:
sudo usermod -a -G firejail *username
(change username for your actual account name!)
Once that’s done, a quick log out / log in is needed and Firejail is ready to go to work.
How to run Firefox in a sandbox
To launch Firefox or any other web browser in a sandbox, I first launch the terminal and type: firejail firefox (Enter)
To test if everything is working as expected, type this string into the browser URL:
file:///home/username/ (again, substitute “username” for your actual account name). The browser will then display a “fake” home directory structure which does not exist. The idea is that what doesn’t exist, won’t get attacked. That’s basically it.
For more information, look up the Firejail homepage. I only launch Firefox with Firejail and since the internet is a mess, I also use uBlock Origin to block most of the trackers. For situations when the tracker-blocking plugin(s) and Firejail are not enough, Tor is worth considering. Again, depending on the situation, booting into Tails Linux might be worth it but somewhat overkill.
When not to use Firejail
I don’t use Firejail when I work on websites. The whole point of Firejail is that no data gets transferred to and from my computer. While in protected mode, editing a WordPress site is possible but pictures can not be uploaded to the media library. For all other instances, Firejail is the norm.
I hope that you will check out Firejail and if not then at least remember that this option exists. Once I opened a well-known social networking site via etherape, I instantly understood that sand-boxing my online presence is a must or even better, avoid it altogether. Thank you for reading.
