Is there a browser that can be set up to open links in another browser such a firefox?

The links are in the bookmarks.html file format exported from firefox. Don't want this file to be opened with firefox because this would fetch all the DNS names in all links in the file and there are other privacy issues too. Instead, bookmarks.html would be opened with another browser that is blocked from internet access. And then you click on links and for each link clicked a firefox window would be launched. Can this be done?

One option: here's a tmux plugin to quickly open HTTP(s) links displayed in the terminal, in the browser of your choice:

https://github.com/tmux-plugins/tmux-open

Kinda awkward this. It's nice in normal browsers that you can press ctrl and click on lots of links to open in new windows/tabs.

Why don't you right click on the bookmarks.html file and open it with LibreOffice Writer.

Then you can follow any links you want in that document by control clicking on them to view the link in Firefox.

1 members found this post helpful.

You also can do a little shell to open links into firefox's new tab.
Opening links one by one or all at once, I guess it is according how many links your file contains.

LibreOffice Writer does the job. It probably does not open any connections at all, but just to be sure, how can this be confirmed?

I think that it is unlikely that LibreOffice opens any connections - I imagine that it just calls on the default browser to open the particular URL.

However, if this is something of concern, then you could always use WireShark to sniff your network traffic. Either that or you could examine the LibreOffice source code (https://www.libreoffice.org/about-us/source-code/). Alternatively, contact LibreOffice themselves and ask them (https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/feedback/).

Found a safer approach: create a group that is never allowed to use the internet and start LibreOffice Writer as a member of this group.

https://askubuntu.com/questions/4507...r-each-program

I guess I'm confused.
The bookmarks.html file that's created by exporting bookmarks from Firefox is just an html document ("web page") containing links for each of the bookmarks exported. One page with many links.

Opening that page in Firefox (or any other browser) doesn't "fetch" anything, it just displays a list of the links.
Clicking on a link will open the website (as if one clicked on a bookmark) in the same window and tab.
One can right-click on a link to open it in a new tab or window.
If you don't click on a link, nothing happens.

I don't understand, Ulysses_, what the issue is. What problem are you trying to solve, please?

Firefox will pre-fetch DNS queries for most things it thinks a user "might" click - that includes links in pages and visible bookmarks...

You can disable much of that with about:config options, look for anything with "predictor" or "prefetch" in the name and consider what it does - not always obvious (note that you need to think about what you are disabling, it can/will affect browsing performance).

These two should be false (true by default):

This should be true (false by default):

Interesting...
As I read it, predictor entries are stored in the cache and are a result of having visited a site before, not just because a link appears on a page. Additionally, the site will have had a flag set to make that cache entry.

That does not appear to be true for DNS pre-fetching...but I don't see how that would be harmful ('tho I need to do a bit more digging).

That said, wouldn't resetting the predictor values and (perhaps) clearing the cache accomplish what the OP wants?

Do other browsers do the prefetch thing? That export to html function is designed to copy bookmarks between browsers in addition to backups. I used it to copy bookmarks from my well-used Windows FF to my newly-installed Linux copy.

Thanks for the education. What I like about LQ. Learn something every day...

If it makes an interaction across a network not knowingly initiated by the user, it will be exploited by malicious actors. I have been somewhat stunned by how many ordinary things can be, are manipulated for advantage or with harmful intent... the internet has gone from superhiway to Mad Max in recent years - never assume aanything!

With regard to Firefox, the configs are often so poorly documented and change both meaning and applicability so frequently, I never assume I know what they do without looking at the resulting network traffic. Open wireshark and set up a default Firefox (or any browser) instance and begin to browse... not for the faint hearted!

In fact even more drastic measures are in place here if anyone is interested:

Firefox bookmarks are deleted. Only a few new bookmarks are added and they are periodically exported and deleted too, to be joined into a single bookmarks.html in another VM that has no internet access.

Also intercepting the /usr/bin/firefox script and replacing it with a script that sends the URL to another VM to run firefox there:
The other VM is listening on 7777:
In this VM firefox or its plugins or downloads can get as nosy as they want, they will never have access to user data in the first VM.

Emails are read in yet another VM with thunderbird installed that has its firefox similarly intercepted to protect the email store. So you click on links in emails and firefox is launched in the firefox VM.