Mercury Browser
Mercury Browser is a Firefox fork with compiler optimizations and patches from Librewolf, Waterfox, FireDragon, PlasmaFox, and Ghostery. Mercury delivers safe and fast web browsing. Featuring a familiar user interface, enhanced security and privacy features, and AVX compiler optimizations, Mercury lets you get the most out of the web.
Features
- Compiler adjustments include AVX, AES, LTO, and PGO.
- Turn off all telemetry and reporting.
- Disable all debugging elements and activate hardening by default.
- Default settings include backspace for navigation and GPU acceleration.
- Activate the Do Not Track feature and enable Global Privacy Control.
- Turn off Pocket, highlights, and suggested content on the new tab page.
- Bring back the top bar to its ~ESR78 state, including the home button and developer button.
- Permit the installation of extensions that are not signed.
Installation
Go to the Mercury Releases GitHub website and download the most current version of the installation file for your system. Since I'm using Ubuntu MATE, I downloaded the .deb file.
Locate the installation file on your system.
Double-click the installation file to open your Package Installer. I use the GDebi Package Installer on my system. (sudo apt install gdebi) Click the Install Package button.
Enter your Password and click the Authenticate button.
Wait until you see Same version is already installed before you close the Package Installer.
You are now ready to open the Mercury Browser. If you do not see it in your menu then reboot your system.
When you open Mercury you will see a blank webpage with 16 shortcuts below a search bar.
Recommended Browser Extensions
Here are several add-ons or extensions that you can use to enhance your web browser’s protection and security.
Here are several add-ons or extensions that you can use to enhance your web browser’s protection and security.
- uBlock Origin (Firefox Add-ons)
- Popup Blocker (strict) (Firefox Add-ons) or AdBlock for Firefox (Firefox Add-ons)
- Privacy Badger (Firefox Add-ons) or DuckDuckGo (Firefox Add-ons)
- Bitwarden (Firefox Add-ons)
- SponsorBlock for YouTube (Firefox Add-ons)
- Malwarebytes Browser Guard (Firefox Add-ons)
- TWP - Translate Web Pages (Firefox Add-ons)
Themes
Change your browser's appearance. Choose from thousands of themes to give Mercury the look you want.
Change the Background Image of Home Page
Go to about:support in the address bar. (Press Enter)
It should open your Mercury profile directory, which is usually in your $home directory. Click the Open Directory button or copy the entire Profile Directory and paste it in your file manager.
Create a directory called chrome inside the opened directory, if it's not already there. (The file name is case sensitive.)
Go to the chrome folder and create a folder called img and create a file called userContent.css.
Move your image to the img directory. Do not include spaces within the image file name.
Open userContent.css in any text editor.
Paste the following code:
@-moz-document url(about:home), url(about:newtab), url(about:privatebrowsing) {
.click-target-container *, .top-sites-list * {
color: #fff !important ;
text-shadow: 2px 2px 2px #222 !important ;
}
body::before {
content: "" ;
z-index: -1 ;
position: fixed ;
top: 0 ;
left: 0 ;
background: #f9a no-repeat url(img/northern-lights.jpg) center ;
background-size: cover ;
width: 100vw ;
height: 100vh ;
}
}
.click-target-container *, .top-sites-list * {
color: #fff !important ;
text-shadow: 2px 2px 2px #222 !important ;
}
body::before {
content: "" ;
z-index: -1 ;
position: fixed ;
top: 0 ;
left: 0 ;
background: #f9a no-repeat url(img/northern-lights.jpg) center ;
background-size: cover ;
width: 100vw ;
height: 100vh ;
}
}
Don't forget to change the file name in url(img/northern-lights.jpg) to your preferred image.
Save the file and quit the editor.
Save the file and quit the editor.
Go to the url about:config
In the Search Bar, paste toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets
Set the value to true by clicking the Toggle button.
This tells Mercury to load the .css file at startup.
Restart Mercury if it's running.
How to Uninstall Mercury:
1. Open the Terminal (Shortcut: Ctrl + Alt + T)
2. Type the following: sudo apt remove mercury-browser
1. Open the Terminal (Shortcut: Ctrl + Alt + T)
2. Type the following: sudo apt remove mercury-browser
Additional Mercury Links
Overall, I think Mercury is a great browser.
Dec 11, 2023