It is apparently possible to use Firefox containers to bypass or enable a VPN on a per-site basis. I discovered this yesterday and it makes using a VPN nowadays much easier, wish I’d heard of it ages ago. Using a SOCKS proxy this way also reduces captchas.

To setup:

  1. Install Firefox Multi-Account Containers.
  2. Install Container Proxy.
  3. Add VPN config under Extensions (puzzle icon in toolbar) > Container proxy > Proxies (for example, Mullvad SOCKS5 proxy).
  4. Make sure “Proxy DNS requests” is checked and the Uncloak canonical names setting in uBlock Origin is disabled to prevent DNS leaks.
  5. Assign VPN to default and private browsing container.
  6. Create a new container named e.g. “Unsecured” with the Multi-Account Container add-on and assign it a direct connection (default).
  7. In VPN client, configure Firefox to use split tunneling. Example split tunneling with the Mullvad app.
  8. Test default and unsecured containers against VPN website.

The Container Proxy add-on is only needed to configure the unnamed default and private browsing containers. If you want to do the inverse (create a VPN container and leave the default unprotected), you can do that solely with Multi-Account Containers under Extensions (puzzle icon in toolbar) > Multi-Account Containers > Manage Containers > Container > Advanced proxy settings.

  • Hanrahan@slrpnk.netEnglish
    1·
    7 days ago

    Haha this is one of those i didn’t know i needed this umtil I read it, thanks for that.

    But seriously I’d kind of thought it would be nice but didn’t even think to investigate getting it to work.

  • Andromxda 🇺🇦🇵🇸🇹🇼@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    1·
    3 months ago

    The Container Proxy add-on is only needed to configure the unnamed default and private browsing containers. If you want to do the inverse (create a VPN container and leave the default unprotected), you can do that solely with Multi-Account Containers under Extensions (puzzle icon in toolbar) > Multi-Account Containers > Manage Containers > Container > Advanced proxy settings.

    Couldn’t you just use the normal Firefox network settings to set a proxy for the default? Or does it overwrite the proxy settings in Multi-Account Containers?