THE DOCTOR RESPONDS: The
budget PC we recommended
was built around the AMD
Ryzen 3 2200G processor, with
ASRock’s B450M Steel Legend
our choice of motherboard.
These days, onboard graphics
can easily handle two HD
displays like yours—the
key is making sure your
motherboard has the right
outputs. Luckily, the B450M
Steel Legend fits the bill—you
can plug your Samsung into
its HDMI port, and the Dell into
the DVI port.
Regarding your Blu-ray
drive, you’re correct: The
Corsair SPEC-05 case isn’t
designed to accommodate any
optical drives, so you need
to look elsewhere. You don’t
have to look too far, though:
Corsair’s SPEC-01 gaming
case supports up to two
5.25-inch optical drives, and
at $60, won’t break the bank.Backing Up Firefox
For years I’ve performed a
fresh reinstall of Windows
every 12–18 months on my
PC and my wife’s. I’ve always
used a program called FEBE
to image my Firefox browser.
It worked great backing up
open tabs, passwords, and
bookmarks. Now FEBE no
longer supports the latest
Firefox version, and I can’t
find anything that does the
same thing. Do you know of
any FEBE replacements? I
have two hard drives on both
computers, and it was always
a piece of cake reinstalling
using the second hard
drive as a place for all my
software, licenses, and FEBE
backup. –Ray FletcherTHE DOCTOR RESPONDS:
FEBE effectively ceased
development over three years
ago, right around the time
Firefox dropped support for
so-called legacy extensions.
We’re surprised you’ve been
able to keep it going for so
long. Going forward, one
solution is to make use of a
Firefox account, which enables
you to sync all your Firefox
data to the cloud, making
it easy to set up again postreinstall. It also keeps things
backed up as you work.
This approach isn’t perfect,
though—you must re-log
into all your old online
accounts after reinstalling
Windows, plus restoring tabs
is awkward and incapable of
restoring your setup exactly
the way it was. It certainly
requires a bit more work and
doesn’t meet your own criteria
of “reinstalling it to a position
as if I just sat back down from
only getting a cup of coffee.”
Thankfully, there is a fuss-
free way of backing up and
restoring your Firefox profile
to its previous state: KLS Mail
Backup (www.kls-soft.com/
klsmailbackup). Despite the
name, it’s designed to back up
browsers, too.
After launch, click “OK” and
select Mozilla Firefox from the
“Add Items” list. Click “User
Profile” to select your profile
(“default-release” on our PC),
leave everything checked,
then click “Add & Close.”
You’re shown the “Properties”
dialog, where you can choose
your backup destination—we
also recommend selecting
“Scheduler” to have it backed
up periodically to provide
additional protection against
data loss. Once set up, click
“Save & Run,” allowing KLS
Mail Backup to close Firefox to
complete the backup job.
After reinstalling Windows,
reinstall Firefox, and let it
launch. Close it, then reinstall
and launch KLS Mail Backup.
Click “Close” at the profile
setup and properties screens
in turn, then choose “File >Open Archive” to find and
select the backup you took just
prior to reinstalling Windows.
Click “Next,” then “Restore.”
Job done: Firefox restores
your profile to the point when
it was last backed up.
We did struggle with some
add-ons not appearing in
the browser toolbar after
restoration, but we think this
was because Bitdefender
forced a couple of plugins on
to us. Go to “about:addons”
where you should find the add-
ons are all present: Disable
and re-enable each in turn to
restore them to the toolbar.Securing Booksonic
I’ve tried following Nick
Peers’s advice in the
February issue to set up a
secure external connection
to my Booksonic audiobook
server using a LetsEncrypt
Docker container, but so far
all I’ve managed to do is set
up an insecure connection
using the subfolder
technique. Is it possible to
set up a secure connection
instead? –Hans SchwartzTHE DOCTOR RESPONDS: You
may find everything is already
in place—if your audiobook
server is running on the
same IP address as your
LetsEncrypt Docker instance,
try going to https://domain.
com/booksonic instead of
http://domain.com:4040/
booksonic in your browser—if
all is well, you should be able
to log in securely.
If this isn’t the case, you
can still achieve what youwant. First, your Booksonic
server needs exclusive access
to port 443 on whatever
machine (virtual or physical)
it’s running, which means it
requires its own unique IP
address. Second, you need to
set up a suitable subdomain
pointed to your home public IP
address—”booksonic.domain.
com” for example—for your
apps to use to dial in remotely.
Your nginix/LetsEncrypt
server needs to create an
SSL certificate for booksonic.
domain.com following
the advice in the previous
guides—if you’re running it
through Docker, for example,
recreate the container,
making sure to add booksonic
to the list recorded in the
SUBDOMAINS value. Finally, if
you’ve not done so, you need to
set up a port-forwarding rule
in your router pointing port
443 to the IP address of the
nginx server. This allows the
server to redirect connections
on port 443—regular
https:// connections—to
your Booksonic server on
the booksonic.domain.com
without affecting any other
services that also use port 443
through the reverse proxy,
such as a personal web server.
Browse to the “/config/
nginix/proxy-confs” folder
and download a copy of
the “airsonic.subdomain.
conf.sample” file to your
PC. Open it in a text editor
and save it as “booksonic.
subdomain.conf.” Edit the
“server_name airsonic.;”
line so it reads “server_name
booksonic.;” then point “set
$upstream_airsonic” toward
your Booksonic server’s IP
address—for example:
set $upstream_airsonic
192.168.0.5
Save the file, upload it back
to “proxy-confs,” then restart
the LetsEncrypt container.
Test the connection works
by going to https://booksonic.
domain.com/booksonic in your
browser—you should see a
secure connection inside and
outside your home network.
Once verified, update your
apps to point to the new https
©^ URL, and you’re good to go.
FIR
EF
OX
KLS Mail Backup can back up and restore your entire Firefox profile.maximumpc.com MAR 2020 MAXIMUMPC 23