For Firefox there is (was?) IETab which lets you open websites in IE tabs inside Firefox. I think there was even an option to specify that certain websites (e.g. the Intranet, certain banks) should always open in IETab.

Haven't used it for years but back when I was a Windows sysadmin it was the final proof that FF was better than IE: in addition to being Firefox it could also be IE : )

IETab - now that's a blast from the past o.O

I've got a medical application that only works in Firefox running IETab. Interestingly, it doesn't work in any version of IE. It's an odd product.

How the hell did this app manage to get developed?

By somebody running IETab, duh

After a quick search, it looks like this may still be a thing for Chrome? https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ie-tab/hehijbfgiek...

I use it daily and it works great.

I understand the utility of this, and the (unfortunate) reasons why this is needed, but good lord, it seems almost like a parody.

What I really want is the ability (recipe ?) to chroot a browser.

I would like to run 3-4 browsers at all times, each with totally sandboxed identity and IP address.

However I do not necessarily want to run a full blown VM for each of them.

This is very simple and efficient for sandboxing server daemons - I do it all the time and there is almost zero overhead involved in chroot/jail. However I have never chrooted a GUI application and cannot find any instances/recipes of anyone chrooting a browser ...

Are you aware of https://firejail.wordpress.com/ ? Sounds like it's what you are looking for (or is there a reason it does not satisfy your requirements?)

Thank you - I was not aware of firejail.

It appears that this does the things I am looking for - however, I am suspicious - why do we need a new project like this rather than a simple recipe for the existing jail or chroot system calls ?

What is it that makes something like firejail necessary ?

I've run it only once, and I don't really know, but I was under the impression it just took care of setting up bpf syscall filters and namespaces to provide least privilege - which, given neither X not e.g. Firefox was designed to be sandbox, is more complicated than one would expect.