browser-hub 0.0.4

Manage multiple browser instances without hassles.

[!NOTE]
This program is tested on Ubuntu 22.04 and mainly Chrome but same concept applies to other OSes and browsers.

Problem

As consultants, we usually work with multiple clients. Separating the work isn't difficult until you start using the browser. For example, they might have different Google/Outlook accounts. Add to that your personal account, and it quickly becomes a mess to handle in the same browser. Another thing is the browser extensions. Imagine you and all your clients are using Toggl extension to track the time, and you should use a different account for each.

You would be able to use multiple profiles in Chrome and Firefox. But there's another problem. Let's say you click on a link from outside the browser (e.g., VSCode). In which profile should it be opened?

Solution

The solution is a program that replaces the default browser. It then decides which browser instance to open based on the domain or a keyword in the URL.

This is a good start but not enough. At least in Chrome, the window classes (wm_class in xorg) of different profile instances are the same. So, even if you open a separate window for each profile, they are all grouped together. It becomes harder and harder to distinguish them when switching windows.

The final piece is using separate user directory in Chrome (via --user-data-dir). This way Chrome creates a different window class for each profile. We can enhance it further by creating a dedicated launcher and icon. Here is an example .desktop file:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.1
Type=Application
Name=Chrome - Client1
Comment=Browser profile for Client1
Icon=/home/amir/Documents/Icons/web-browser-yellow.svg
Exec=google-chrome --user-data-dir=/home/amir/.config/google-chrome/Client1 %U
Categories=Network;
StartupWMClass=google-chrome (/home/amir/.config/google-chrome/Client1)

Specifying StartupWMClass lets the launcher know which profile is currently open. For example, when I open the default and the client-1's browser, the launcher shows this:

Install

1. Install Browser Hub: pipx install browser-hub
2. Configure it
3. Set Browser Hub as your default browser

To test it, you can run Browser Hub in your terminal:

browser-hub {url}

Configuration

Create the config folder:

mkdir -p ~/.config/browser-hub

Create config.json file. Here's an example for Chrome:

{
  "default_browser_open_cmd": "google-chrome {url}",
  "profiles": [
    {
      "name": "Client1",
      "url_patterns": ["client1-domain1", "client1-domain2"],
      "browser": {
        "open_cmd": "google-chrome --user-data-dir=/home/amir/.config/google-chrome/Client1 \"{url}\"",
        "process_names": ["chrome"],
        "cmd_includes_regex": "--user-data-dir=.+google-chrome/Client1",
        "cmd_excludes_regex": "--type=renderer"
      },
      "url_transformers": [
        {
          "keywords": ["/client1-org1", "/client1-org2", "/client1-org3"],
          "from_url_regex": "http(s)?://(.*\\.)?github.com",
          "to_url": "https://ghe.client1-on-prem.com"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "Client2",
      "url_patterns": ["client2-domain"],
      "browser": {
        "open_cmd": "google-chrome --user-data-dir=/home/amir/.config/google-chrome/Client2 \"{url}\"",
        "process_names": ["chrome"],
        "cmd_includes_regex": "--user-data-dir=.+google-chrome/Client1",
        "cmd_excludes_regex": "--type=renderer"
      },
      "url_transformers": []
    }
  ],
  "profile_specific_urls": [
    "amazon.com",
    "github.com",
    ".google.com",
    "datadoghq.com",
    "sentry.io",
    "lucid.app"
  ]
}

A few examples based on this config:

Source URL	Target URL	Profile
https://www.client1-domain1.com	Same	Client 1
https://www.client2-domain.com	Same	Client 2
https://console.amazon.com	Same	Active Profile based on the running process
https://github.com/client1-org1/repo1	https://ghe.client1-on-prem.com/client1-org1/repo1	Client 1
https://news.ycombinator.com/	Same	Default Chrome Profile

Firefox Config Example

You first need to create firefox profiles (in this example: client-1, client-2), then use the following config example:

{
  "default_browser_open_cmd": "firefox {url}",
  "profiles": [
    {
      "name": "Client 1",
      "browser": {
        "open_cmd": "firefox -P client-1 --class client-1 \"{url}\"",
        "process_names": ["firefox"],
        "cmd_includes_regex": "-P client-1"
      },
      "url_patterns": ["client1-domain1", "client1-domain2"]
    },
    {
      "name": "Client 2",
      "browser": {
        "open_cmd": "firefox -P client-2 --class client-2 \"{url}\"",
        "process_names": ["firefox"],
        "cmd_includes_regex": "-P client-2"
      },
      "url_patterns": ["client2-domain1", "client2-domain2"]
    }
  ],
  "profile_specific_urls": [
    "amazon.com",
    "github.com",
    ".google.com",
    "datadoghq.com",
    "sentry.io"
  ]
}

Options

• default_browser_open_cmd: The shell command to run the default browser when no profile is matching the opened URL. Normally it should be set to your personal profile.
• profiles: [Array] Profiles of your clients.
  • name: Name of the profile.
  • url_patterns: [Array] This profile will be opened if the URL contains any of these patterns. Usually set to the client-specific domains.
  • browser: Browser information specific to this profile.
    • open_cmd: The shell command to open this client profile browser.
    • process_names: [Array] Name of the browser process used to determine whether a profile is active.
    • cmd_includes_regex: A regular expression to distinguish this profile browser processes.
    • cmd_excludes_regex: The processes with a command line that matches this regular expression will be ignored. Useful to exclude the browser process when running in the background.
  • url_transformers: [Array] Transforming a URL to another one. e.g. Mapping GitHub actions to the enterprise on-prem GitHub instance.
    • keywords: [Array] Keywords that trigger the transformer if found in the URL.
    • from_url_regex: Matching regular expression that specifies what to replace in the URL (regex groups).
    • to_url: The URL will be replaced by this string. Backreferences, such as \6, are replaced with the substring matched by group 6 in the from_url_regex.
• profile_specific_urls: [Array] If the URL contains any of the specified items in this field, Browser Hub will check whether any profile-specific browser is running, and open the URL in that browser instance. If more than one profile are running, one of them will be selected randomly (usually the one that was run first). This is useful for cases where we can't recognize the profile from the URL (e.g. Google Docs).