Why
Browser Tamer acts as a browser proxy on your machine that catches links you click and redirects them to a browser or browser profile of your choice.
The main difference compared to other products is that it’s tiny (less than 1.5mb exe, ~2mb RAM), completely free, blazing fast, and never uses more than 0% CPU or any CO2 (makes it good for the 🌎). It works on green energy and even the oldest hardware you can find. It also does not track you.
Installing
You have a few options:
- direct download (installer or portable)
- with winget:
winget install IvanG.BrowserTamer - with scoop:
scoop install bt
Change log can be accessed from the program itself (Help menu) or downloaded here.
Preparations
Once launched, Browser Tamer will perform a quick self-check and warn you which actions need to be performed by you for links to be properly proxied by it.
Health status is also available in the bottom status bar (green and red heart).
Configuring
Default Browser
By default, BT takes the first browser it finds and opens all the links in it.
You can change this from Settings->Default Browser menu which lists all the detected browsers and profiles hierarchically.
Rules
All the links that do not match any configured rules will open in the default browser, however, that’s not very interesting and not why you installed this utility in the first place.
To open a link in another browser, you need to create a rule.
A rule is a single line in the Rules section. It simply says that if a link contains the text you’ve typed in, then open the specified browser. It is case insensitive so a line mydomain will match mydomain.com, MyDomain.com or https://blabla.mydomain.com.
You can keep adding as many rules as you want, they are always case-insensitive and match any part or the URL.
Picker
Picker is a visual prompt that asks which browser you want to open a link in specifically, instead of matching a rule. It’s invoked in the following situations:
- There is more than one browser matching a specific rule. You may have a duplicated rule in several browsers, or an URL is matching different rules in different browsers. Picker will be displayed to resolve this conflict.
- Buttons
ctrlandshiftwere held when clicking a link (this can be configured in settings). In this case, the picker will display all of the browsers registered on the system to pick from.
Simply clicking the browser you want closes this window and opens the desired browser.
The list of browsers is sorted by popularity i.e. how many times you have chosen this particular browser in the past (red square).
As a convenience you can add a rule by tapping the “add rule” button before a browser is selected - this will persist without the need to open the configuration dialogue.
You can also just press “copy & cancel” to close this window without opening any browsers and copying the URL into the clipboard instead.
Visual Themes
As of 2.9.0 themes are properly supported. The default theme is “Follow OS” which switches to dark or light mode depending on OS settings (available in Windows 10 and 11).
Supported Browsers
All the browsers known to the world are supported. Out of the box, Brower Tamer detects:
- Mozilla Firefox. Including private mode and profiles.
- Microsoft Edge “Edgium” (Windows 10/11 default). Including profiles and incognito mode.
- Google Chrome, including profiles and incognito mode.
- Brave, including profiles, incognito mode and Tor Mode.
- Vivaldi, including profiles.
- Opera.
- Tor.
- Other browsers based on Chromium or Firefox may be autodetected as well, as they register themselves in the system in a similar way. Users have reported successfully using Slimjet, Avant, Chromium as well but I suspect the actual list is way longer.
And if that’s not enough, you can always add your custom browser if it’s not discovered or installed in an unsupported way (like a portable install). Note that scoop is famous for screwing up browser installations, so most probably you will need to customize it in some way.
How To Configure MS Teams
Find instructions here.
Firefox
Firefox has several options to manage profiles - classic and “containers”. One is not better than the other and is more suitable for certain needs. BT supports classic profiles very well, and automatically discovers them on start. If you have Firefox installed, you should see extra buttons to open and manage profiles:
In addition to that, you can create rules specific to Firefox profiles so link can be opened directly in a profile you want.
If you have created a Firefox profile but it’s not showing up in BT, you need to re-open BT app.
Browser Extensions
You can optionally install an extension for Chrome or Edge. that help to redirect links from inside the browser to local instance of Browser Tamer. Those links can also be found in the Help menu from the app itself.
FAQ
Export/Import Configuration
Starting from v2.7.2 configuration is stored alongside bt.exe in bt.ini file. You can back it up and restore on the same machine or with some luck on a different machine.
Prior to v2.7.2 configuration was stored in the Windows Registry. If you have to export current configuration to a file for memories or just to back it up, you can still do that:
reg export "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Browser Tamer" backup.reg
reg is standard command, that will create backup.reg file you can import elsewhere or just open in text editor. To import later use reg import.
Are there signed executables available?
No. This is a hobby project and code signing certificate costs around $100/year + hidden notary fees + a lot of paperwork. I don’t have time of money for this bullshit.
Thanks! You can always email me or use contact form for more questions/comments etc.