[HN Gopher] Firefox profiles: Private, focused spaces for all th...
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Firefox profiles: Private, focused spaces for all the ways you
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Author : darkwater
Score : 359 points
Date : 2025-10-29 08:10 UTC (8 days ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.mozilla.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.mozilla.org)
| sorcercode wrote:
| for the most part I've been using Firefox containers and loving
| that life of getting the same benefits without having to create
| separate profiles.
|
| but it's nice to see this finally get into Firefox because there
| are still a lot of folks who also want to maintain things like
| browser bookmarks, passwords etc in a separate profile. that's
| the only conceivable useful difference over Containers (which
| IMHO is slightly better than having to manage multiple profiles)
| happymellon wrote:
| > that's the only conceivable useful difference over Containers
|
| But thats a massive difference.
|
| I have work profiles and a personal profile. I have password
| manager profiles for clients (clients will provide their own PM
| logins to segregate their access) which are different between
| them, and having separate profiles is huge.
|
| Containers are great, especially for crappy websites that use
| your sessions for tracking which page you are on, but they are
| no where near powerful enough.
| sorcercode wrote:
| that's fair (and glad profiles have finally arrived in FF for
| that reason); personally, i don't use password managers
| linked to any specific browser but i can understand your use
| case.
| jobigoud wrote:
| > and glad profiles have finally arrived in FF for that
| reason
|
| Profiles have been there for years, been using them since
| at least 2010.
| degamad wrote:
| You've hit on the relevant distinction: user context vs
| system context.
|
| I use containers to separate system context (partitioning
| cookies and site data) while remaining in the same user
| context (e.g. "personal browsing").
|
| I use profiles for when I need different user contexts
| (different bookmarks and frequently used sites for different
| clients or projects).
|
| When only one tool is available, you are limited by the
| constraints of that tool (e.g. bookmarks bleeding over
| between user contexts when using containers, or having to
| copy extensions or bookmarks into every profile).
| kiernan wrote:
| I like to have it both ways. Given the options available so
| far I've preferred to have bookmarks shared between both
| and mainly keep tabs / working context separate.
|
| The best I've managed so far is to run separate instances
| of Firefox with the same Sync Account which appear as
| separate 'devices'. Nightly with a different icon and theme
| makes it obvious which is which.
|
| This way if I come across something interesting I want dig
| into further on my own time, I can bookmark it as well as
| 'Send Tab To Device -> Home' or 'Phone' depending on where
| I want to be and what environment I want to have available
| when I see it later (e.g. read only, or hands on).
|
| Yes, I may be hoarding a lot of tabs but that's a separate
| issue...
| dizhn wrote:
| Cookies can already be partitioned. I am not sure if it's
| default but at the very least it's a config flag. It's
| called site isolation. I have seen Firefox people say
| containers kind of become unnecessary with this in place in
| terms of privacy but they kind of have an opaque whitelist
| to get some things to work. The biggest example is google
| properties.
| pantulis wrote:
| > I use profiles for when I need different user contexts
| (different bookmarks and frequently used sites for
| different clients or projects).
|
| This is the part where the new Firefox profiles fall short.
| I just checked and cannot create two separate profiles with
| the same email address. So it's not possible tohave
| different profiles for different _projects_ at work, for
| example.
|
| Containers are the way to go with this, but then they are
| not exactly intuitive. Arc got this right and Zen is
| showing a lot of promise.
| sudobash1 wrote:
| > that's the only conceivable useful difference over Containers
|
| Actually, I have wanted better profile support for a while to
| segregate addons. There are plenty of addons that I want to use
| occasionally that require full data access. I generally do
| trust them, but even so, I keep these in a separate profile
| just in case. That is something that can't be done with
| containers.
| sfRattan wrote:
| > There are plenty of addons that I want to use occasionally
| that require full data access. I generally do trust them...
|
| Seconded, except I don't trust most add-ons and don't want to
| have to trust them.
|
| I want an easy way to launch a disposable browser session in
| any browser, totally isolated, _with add-ons chosen (and
| downloaded) at launch time, and then erased of with the rest
| of the session when its last open page is closed_.
| gaadd33 wrote:
| I think Firefox focus does that on android, I'm sure
| there's a way to get the same result on a desktop with some
| flags and pointing to a config file (or a read only profile
| folder maybe?)
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| AFAIK Firefox Focus doesn't have extensions at all:(
| Although yes, it effectively has only private/incognito
| sessions that are erased when you close the app.
| attendant3446 wrote:
| Profiles were in Firefox for a long time now. It looks like
| they finally have made a proper UI for it.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| What's wrong with the existing ProfileManager?
| WorldMaker wrote:
| Beyond its UI having basically been frozen since Netscape
| Navigator 4-ish modulo XUL shenanigans?
|
| The new Profile Manager (that doesn't yet entirely replace
| the old one, both exist side-by-side for the moment) uses
| icons and colors to better differentiate profiles at a
| glance.
|
| Additionally links to the new Profile Manager are now in
| the Account menu and feel a bit more like an "account
| chooser" (comparable to Chrome's experience, especially)
| and lot less like a power user feature hidden behind a page
| address that people might not know ("about:profiles").
| uniqueuid wrote:
| Profiles have always been great, but it's kind of unfortunate
| that this feature seems to be locked behind a sign-in (the link
| in the article describes the UI as being in the profile menu).
|
| I mean, I've been using about:profiles for ages, but it would
| definitely be nice to have a bit more polish (e.g. every now and
| again I forget that a newly created profile is automatically
| promoted to default)
|
| [edit] well seems I have to eat my words - there's a switch in
| about:config named "browser.profiles.enabled" that toggles a
| profiles menu item with some UI that apparently has existed for
| years. Nice!
| crtasm wrote:
| Nice to know about that. Odd that it doesn't list any of my
| existing profiles though
| uniqueuid wrote:
| You're right, it seems both the UI and the old about:profiles
| page do use the same underlying implementation, but the UI
| does not pick up any profiles added through the about: page.
| If you create a new profile from the UI, that will show up in
| about (after a restart).
| miki_oomiri wrote:
| It blows my mind.
|
| I can't have profile without having a "Sign In" button in my
| toolbar. Mozilla... please. How is it possible, to ship a
| feature and do that...
| iamcalledrob wrote:
| Glad to see improvements here -- switching between profiles has
| always been a weak spot for Firefox!
| jobigoud wrote:
| I don't understand some of these comments. Start firefox, pick
| profile, opens a window in the selected profile.
|
| The only weirdness is when you have multiple windows of
| different profiles opened at the same time and you open a link
| from a different application it may open it in the last used
| window which may not be the one you wanted. But then you can of
| course just drag and drop the tab from one window to the other.
| notafox wrote:
| You don't need to switch. Just open whatever profile you want
| directly.
|
| No need to go to about:profiles. Use a separate shortcut with a
| -profile option added.
| x0x0 wrote:
| I enabled this last night and it deleted my existing profile,
| fwiw.
|
| Both bookmarks that I'd just created and, just to clarify I'm not
| losing my mind, the full profile because I had to reinstall
| ublock origin.
| Anthony-G wrote:
| After shutting down Firefox and restarting, I tried the new
| profile manager UI just now and also thought I had lost my
| existing profile. Luckily, it was still available from the
| hamburger menu (just below the "Synchronise all your devices"
| option) and I was able to switch back to it (with all my
| existing bookmarks, containers and extensions).
| x0x0 wrote:
| I'm glad you found yours, but mine was gone. I went
| spelunking through the profiles directory and it was nowhere
| to be found.
|
| I had to pull it from backups.
| Anthony-G wrote:
| Ah. Sorry to hear that. That's very annoying frustrating
| but I'm glad you were able to restore from backup.
|
| I found it confusing that there are now two different sets
| of profiles and had panicked at first when my original
| profile was apparently gone.
| bluebarbet wrote:
| Profiles are great. I've used them for years. Much better than
| containers, which separate your data sort-of-but-not-quite. A
| profile folder has _everything_. You can copy it, back it up,
| plug it into a completely new Firefox installation later.
|
| That portability is a killer feature, but scriptability needs to
| be improved. The manual says you can do:
|
| >`firefox --profile <path> Start with profile at <path>`
|
| But that will not work as expected if you have more than one
| profile (which is the whole point). At present the only workable
| solution is to fiddle with a GUI thru `about:profiles` (or
| `firefox --ProfileManager`) in order to create the profiles and
| give them all-important UIDs. And then do:
|
| >`firefox -P <UID>`
|
| It may seem small, but I've found that this is a serious
| roadblock. I wish it could be fixed so as to make profiles
| entirely scriptable.
|
| _PS: to be clear, after the futzing with the GUI to create the
| profiles, my script works (well!) at opening windows in the right
| profile, this way: (1) Check if the given profile is already
| launched: `ps -eo args | grep -E "._(firefox). _(-P $UID) " |
| grep -v grep > /dev/null` (2) Do `firefox -P $UID --new-instance
| $url` if it isn't, and `--new-tab` if it is. Inelegant, but very
| reliable._
| conaclos wrote:
| Have you tried `firefox --no-remote --profile <path>`?
|
| In my case, I am able to launch several Firefox instances with
| distinct profiles.
| bluebarbet wrote:
| Yes, I tried that and everything else. Either it refuses to
| launch with `--new-instance` or (from memory, in the case of
| your command) subsequent `--new-tab`s _may_ open in the wrong
| profile. Presumably due to the order in which the original
| instances were created. The point is that the system turns on
| these UIDs, which are not paths or even hashes of paths.
| o11c wrote:
| Note that `--no-remote` breaks starting new browser windows
| from outside, which users normally want.
|
| I'm starting to think that setting the `HOME` environment
| variable is the only way to really make things isolated -
| this still won't handle `~insertusernamehere` but basically
| everything else respects it.
| glandium wrote:
| --no-remote doesn't do anything anymore. It was removed
| about a year ago if memory serves.
| rc_kas wrote:
| I do `open -n "/Applications/Firefox.app" --args -p
| myprofilename` and that does the trick on mac
| UltraSane wrote:
| On windows powershell I do Start-Process "C:\Program
| Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -ArgumentList "-P
| default-release" Which is the exact same idea.
| ghostly_s wrote:
| Tried containers when it was released but found it very
| inconvenient to manage. If I understand this solution doesn't
| even let you have two profiles open at once? That's even less
| useful imho.
|
| edit: I use Simple Tab Groups which is far more featureful -
| "Send tab to [group/container/etc]" for example is table
| stakes.
| bluebarbet wrote:
| Of course you can have them open at once, that's what's
| useful. I have four! And I can open subsequent windows in the
| right profile, no problem. But it required non-trivial
| scripting.
| cassepipe wrote:
| I personnally went for extensions using them. I downloaded,
| Google, Facebook, Amazon, Youtube containers extensions.
|
| I have had issues with Youtube and Google together. I think I
| solved it using the "Don't track me Google extension" but I
| am not so sure anymore
| rswail wrote:
| I have 3 different profiles, one for each of my current
| customers and one personal.
|
| Within the customer profiles, I have containers for things
| like different AWS accounts (although AWS now has that as
| part of the console), I can have logins to test systems and
| production systems etc.
|
| The automation of containers is good too, tied to URLs.
| Brybry wrote:
| In Windows 10 I have shortcuts pinned to my taskbar that are
| just
|
| > ...firefox.exe" -P "profilename"
|
| and then `taskbar.grouping.useprofile true` so only windows
| from the same profile are grouped together and some custom
| recolored Firefox icons for those pinned shortcuts and custom
| per-profile userChrome.css styling (#TabsToolbar background-
| color) for easy visual differentiation of a window's profile.
|
| For Windows 10, no scripting is needed. Just the initial GUI
| profile setup.
|
| > ...firefox.exe" -P "profilename" "https://www.example.com"
|
| from terminal works exactly as expected regardless of how many
| profile instances are currently running or their state.
|
| You can even have multiple versions of Firefox installed and
| point them at different profiles. I have some profiles on ESR
| and some on Standard.
| dare944 wrote:
| I do this on Linux (Mint) and it works as expected.
| mbeex wrote:
| Cannot get this to work with Win11, whose taskbar won't
| accept the same program pinned twice. Even not, after
| creating two shortcuts.
| jack_tripper wrote:
| Weird this works for Edge with two different profiles.
| Brybry wrote:
| For Win 10, I set this up a while ago so my memory is a bit
| fuzzy but the key was the `taskbar.grouping.useprofile
| true` setting. I think after that's set Firefox and Windows
| did some AUMID shenanigans on profile launch.
|
| I just made a new profile as a test and this is what I did:
| ...firefox.exe" -P -> create a new profile (ie.
| "newprofilename") about:config set
| `taskbar.grouping.useprofile = true` (when I originally did
| this for many profiles I believe I copied prefs.js that
| already had it set) close and reopen that
| profile instance. I used ...firefox.exe" -P
| "newprofilename" but any method of launching the profile
| should work. It should now be in a separate taskbar group.
| Pin that new group to taskbar. Also modify its shortcut
| target to add -P "newprofilename" Now you're
| done.
|
| Normally I also renamed the pinned shortcut to something
| sane and then I changed the icon. I took the normal Firefox
| icon (I think w/ GIMP) and just messed with the colors via
| saturation or something so it was easy to tell the
| difference. I remember changing the shortcut icon had some
| headache but I sadly didn't write notes.
|
| Also, I didn't set grouping.useprofile on _all_ my
| profiles, just the profiles I wanted separately pinned on
| my taskbar. My default profile is pinned normally without
| grouping.useprofile set.
| bluebarbet wrote:
| >from terminal [opening URLs in instances using profile
| paths] works exactly as expected regardless of how many
| profile instances are currently running or their state.
|
| That's interesting. It didn't work a couple of years ago,
| perhaps it's been fixed.
|
| Still leaves that initial GUI profile setup.
| notafox wrote:
| You don't need GUI to create profiles.
| ./firefox -CreateProfile "profile-name
| /home/user/.mozilla/firefox/profile-path/"
| Brybry wrote:
| This is a good catch and does indeed work.
| -CreateProfile "profile-name"
|
| also works and will use the default profile path.
| xeonmc wrote:
| Is there a command line flag that opens the url in a
| chromeless window for Firefox, so that it works like a PWA?
| Brybry wrote:
| I haven't messed with Firefox's PWA feature/taskbar-tabs[1]
| but it seems like under the hood it's just using shortcuts
| so you're probably looking for -taskbar-tab
|
| This redditor looks like he's doing close to what you're
| asking with the caveat of needing an entry in
| taskbartabs.json to use -taskbar-tab (and maybe Windows OS
| only) [2]
|
| I don't think it's completely chromeless but you can
| probably hide everything via custom CSS:
|
| ctrl+shift+i (dev tools) -> f1 (settings)
|
| check advanced settings: enable browser
| chrome and add-on debugging enable remote
| debugging
|
| ctrl+shift+alt+i (browser dev tools)
|
| Find element IDs or class names and try out CSS rules to
| your heart's content.
|
| Set toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets =
| true and put your changes in
| Firefox/Profiles/$profilename/chrome/userChrome.css.
|
| Remember to turn off the advanced settings when you're
| done.
|
| [1] https://firefox-source-
| docs.mozilla.org/browser/components/t...
|
| [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1ljidwp/progr
| essiv...
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| > A profile folder has everything. You can copy it, back it up,
| plug it into a completely new Firefox installation later.
|
| These new profiles seem to be slightly different from the old
| ones?
|
| [edit: ignore most of the stuff below, see replies]
|
| The new UI doesn't show your other regular profiles and when
| you create a new profile via the new UI, it also doesn't create
| a separate profile folder (it's part of your active profile).
| They're like sub profiles... probably to allow everything to be
| synced via a Firefox account?
|
| We can still move the profile folder. The difference is that
| what's created with the new UI is part of that folder (the old
| about:profiles page is still there and old style profiles are
| still supported).
| Yaina wrote:
| It still creates separate folders but you're right that
| about:profiles seems to treat them as the same.
|
| When you open about:profiles in both your "new" profiles, you
| can see that even though it has the same name, the path
| changes.
|
| So I think in effect they still behave like profiles before,
| just with some extra logic on top so they have names, icons
| and so on.
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| You're right. For some reason I couldn't see the folders
| being created, but after restarting Firefox (about:profiles
| required me to do after creating profiles with the new UI),
| they are created.
|
| Do you know if there's any way to have old profiles showing
| on this new UI?
|
| Edit: They seem to be working on this:
|
| - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1996240
|
| - https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D270525
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > But that will not work as expected if you have more than one
| profile (which is the whole point). At present the only
| workable solution is to fiddle with a GUI thru `about:profiles`
| (or `firefox --ProfileManager`) in order to create the profiles
| and give them all-important UIDs.
|
| FWIW, that's only true if you care about it having those IDs
| and being exposed to the graphical interface. If you don't,
| then you can just run `firefox --profile
| $HOME/.mozilla/firefox/whatever` and it works. I use a small
| shell script(tm) wrapper to run firefox this way and it's quite
| nice. Also helpful: If you run firefox like that, you can just
| point it at a new empty directory and it'll populate it as a
| profile, so it's easy to make new ones too.
| bluebarbet wrote:
| But that script won't work if you need to open subsequent new
| windows in particular profiles.
|
| _PS: probably. It 's possible there was a fix. The GUI setup
| remains unscriptable._
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Ah, right. TBH I mostly just don't do that, but I did throw
| together a script that takes a URL and just puts it on the
| clipboard and uses notify-send to tell you about it, so I
| can just paste into whichever window I want (and then tell
| the system that that script is my preferred "browser" to
| open http(s) URLs). This obviously adds a little friction,
| but it makes it trivial to open links in any
| browser/profile/window/tab-group I want.
| alex1138 wrote:
| Unfortunately I don't think you can just transfer willy nilly
| between firefox versions, at a certain point downgrades don't
| work, and I'm just trying to figure out where that point is
| (can you move to ESR for example)
| bluebarbet wrote:
| My script uses `firefox-esr --allow-downgrade` for exactly
| that reason. It worked in my case.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| > The manual says you can do:
|
| >>`firefox --profile <path> Start with profile at <path>`
|
| >But that will not work as expected if you have more than one
| profile (which is the whole point).
|
| What won't work? Is that specific to Windows? This just works
| fine on my Linux box.
| freehorse wrote:
| > Much better than containers, which separate your data sort-
| of-but-not-quite
|
| What is better depends on the use case. For me, containers are
| magic, because I can be logged into eg 2-3 different microsoft
| accounts simultaneously in the same window. With profiles or
| other browsers I would need to open a different window for
| each, which would be unnecessary and impractical. This is
| extremely convenient for me, containers is the feature I cannot
| currently browse without. Sometimes "separate your data sort-
| of-but-not-quite" may be exactly what you may need.
| jxf wrote:
| Agree, containers are exactly what I want and I use them all
| the time. Profiles are too much isolation, like installing
| separate VMs to run processes in a completely isolated way
| when something like Docker is fine.
| pantulis wrote:
| The key element here is switching windows across profiles.
| Safari almost gets this right but fails in the UI imho.
| Edge has "workspaces" that could almost work but they don't
| provide isolation.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| Zen [0] can bridge that gap. I have it set up so that
| each workspace in practice maps to a specific container.
|
| [0] https://zen-browser.app/
| debazel wrote:
| This combined with "Always Open Site in Container", that pins
| a site to a specific container makes it almost invisible to
| me when moving between profiles.
|
| I have several sites I only want to open with specific
| profiles and this workflow is a pain with Chrome. (click link
| with wrong profile, copy url, close tab, open a new browser,
| select profile, paste url, open site with correct profile.)
| floralhangnail wrote:
| I really like the "Always Open Site in Container" along
| with "Limit to Designated Sites" once it's set up, but I
| wish there was a way to make it accept wildcards otherwise
| I have to manually add localhost:8080, localhost:8081, etc.
| Manually adding a dozen or more becomes painful.
| joe5150 wrote:
| Does the Containerise extension do what you want? I've
| used it in the past for wildcard subdomains but not for
| ports.
|
| https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
| US/firefox/addon/containerise/
| floralhangnail wrote:
| I have come across that one, but not having the "trusted"
| badge in the extension store has usually been a hard pass
| for me. I might reconsider.
| Too wrote:
| It's so odd that there is no way to edit the list of
| sites manually. Now, the only way to "Always Open Site in
| Container" is to first browse to that page. That's not
| just inconvenient for batch edits, what's worse is that
| you can end up in a redirection deadlock, with no chance
| to edit which container the first url should open in.
| dpoloncsak wrote:
| Today is the day I no longer need to open a private browser
| to manage Entra. Thank you stranger, thank you very much
| jamesgeck0 wrote:
| My biggest struggle with containers is that I constantly
| accidentally shift out of them without noticing. I never
| remember that the default "new tab" keyboard shortcut doesn't
| respect the current container.
| jobigoud wrote:
| A roadblock to what workflow? I just have -p in my firefox
| shortcut and it shows the profile manager every time I launch.
| I have 6 profiles I use regularly.
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| Tip: Use --no-remote to run a second instance of Firefox with a
| separate profile.
|
| Otherwise it tends to just spawn a new window in the existing
| instance.
| bavell wrote:
| Yessss, I've been wondering how to script different FF profiles
| (just haven't had enough time/motivation). That was the only
| thing holding me back from making it my daily driver.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Another roadblock that I've encountered is moving a tab between
| profiles. For a multitude of reasons, foremost between them
| research, I would often come across a tab that I know would be
| useful for one of my other research subjects. If the profile in
| question is closed, there is too much friction to open it, copy
| the url, paste into a new tab, then close the profile again.
|
| A single "Send to profile" option would be such a boon to
| productivity.
| mrb wrote:
| What an extremely confusing blog post! I don't understand why it
| seemingly presents profiles as a new feature? Firefox has had
| profiles for years. What the heck is new?
|
| I had to click the other link https://support.mozilla.org/en-
| US/kb/profile-management to understand that this is all about
| simple UI improvements to make it easier to work with existing
| profiles.
|
| The blog post is more than confusing, it is misleading. HN should
| link to the support page instead of the blog post.
| hobofan wrote:
| 100% agree. It feels like Firefox has had an identical
| announcement of this as a new feature every second major
| release for the last ~2 years.
|
| They are seriously dropping the ball here in terms of
| communication and it just makes Firefox seem stale.
| bashtoni wrote:
| It looks like AI slop to me. "Profiles in Firefox aren't just a
| way to clean up your tabs. They're a way to set boundaries,
| protect your information and make the internet a little
| calmer." - classic meaningless comparison.
| Lammy wrote:
| > Firefox has had profiles for years. What the heck is new?
|
| Even further back -- _Netscape_ had profiles!
| https://web.archive.org/web/20000816175642/http://help.netsc...
| skeledrew wrote:
| For some reason neither my Dark Mode add-on nor the built in
| reader mode (which also makes pages dark as I prefer) work on
| that page. Very annoying; will skip reading that to preserve my
| eyes.
| radley wrote:
| If it's buried in _about:config_ , it's not a feature, it's
| just a dev tool. (FWIW, I read that _config_ settings may reset
| during updates, so at best it 's just a temporary patch.)
|
| It's like saying you have a responsive website, but only if I
| edit the layout in the DOM.
| cassepipe wrote:
| Nit: It's not a parameter in _about:config_ , it's been
| available for a while under _about:profiles_ , no tweak
| needed
| dare944 wrote:
| And now they're rolling out a new UI for it:
| https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-management
| 1718627440 wrote:
| No, you use it in the ProfileManager, which is a GUI that
| pops up on start.
| jobigoud wrote:
| I've been using profiles for 15 years and I didn't even know
| it was in _about:config_.
|
| Just add -p in your shortcut to start on the profile manager.
| throwaway106382 wrote:
| I'm happy this is getting a new UI. Always been a pain to use
| compared to Chrome profiles.
|
| Profiles WITH container tabs is pretty killer, dont' think Chrome
| has anything like this.
| Kinrany wrote:
| Why'd you use profiles and containers together?
| throwaway106382 wrote:
| Profiles for the typical Work/Personal separation with their
| own bookmarks, extensions, password manager accounts
| etc......
|
| Then I use containers for isolating sensitive accounts within
| those profiles (bank, work Google Drive, etc).
|
| I also use temporary containers to make it easier to be
| logged into the same site with multiple accounts at the same
| time between tabs - like admin and user accounts for our
| company's app - which also make it easier to clear sessions
| and data.
|
| https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-
| con...
| WorldMaker wrote:
| The growing consensus seems to be: containers are what
| services you want to separate from each other (cross-service
| tracking cookies, etc) and profiles are what services you
| want to separate for yourself (workflows/projects/work versus
| fun, etc).
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| I wish I could open another profile in one click and/or one
| hotkey.I have two profiles (pro and personal) and it isn't
| possible to open the other with a keyboard shortcut. It's also
| 3-clicks minimum. Not the best UX they could do...
| skeledrew wrote:
| Nice. I've been using Tab Groups Manager, and then Simple Tab
| Groups for years, but have also at times wished for more control
| and better separation while preserving ease of use (I really
| don't want to deal with providing CLI args). Hopefully this
| bridges the gap well.
| jmakov wrote:
| The most useful feature with the worst UX. You have to type
| about:profiles and then create a new profile. But imagin you now
| want to move old profiles to a new computer and FF happens to run
| in a Flatpack. Yeah, much fun
| agumonkey wrote:
| there's an old '-P' flag that shows a small ui
|
| see https://imgur.com/a/Tmt3oEL
| ciupicri wrote:
| Does it still work?
| agumonkey wrote:
| yes. I just started using it last week to split work
| related browsing from personal stuff.
| Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote:
| That used to be a start menu entry in the old days. I had
| heard it was removed but to my surprise -P works on my
| current linux. I'll have to see if it does actually start a
| new profile.
| ishouldbework wrote:
| Huh, I had no idea the <profile> argument to -P is optional
| (--help does not say), I was always using --ProfileManager
| instead. Nice quality of life improvement, thanks for the
| information!
| agumonkey wrote:
| ah well, ironically I had no idea that -P could take a
| profile-name arg.. I always used it without to trigger the
| gui .. so I return the thanks
| fa3556 wrote:
| You can (now?) create profiles from the account icon in the
| toolbar [1] and at least on my firefox install, you can also do
| it from the hamburger menu.
|
| I use firefox via flatpak and had no issues so far accessing
| profile data (in one of the folders in
| ~/.var/app/org.mozilla.firefox/.mozilla/firefox/ - I keep a
| regular archive of the entire folder as backup).
|
| [1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-management
| dare944 wrote:
| > Not all users will see the new Profiles menu in the
| toolbar, since this feature is being rolled out gradually
|
| I don't see it yet, but hopefully soon.
| fa3556 wrote:
| You could use the about:config preference
| browser.profiles.enabled in the meantime I suppose.
| kiwijamo wrote:
| Maybe it hasn't been rolled out to me yet. Or it might be
| because I'm not logged into a Firefox profile? It is only
| availiable to those logged in?
| fa3556 wrote:
| No I don't use sync at all. I think it might just require
| `browser.profiles.enabled` to be set to true in
| about:config, at least until wider rollout.
| eduction wrote:
| I don't have it on 144.0.2 on mac in either of those places,
| just as a datapoint
| jjice wrote:
| I'm on 144.0.2 on MacOS and I do have it. Under the
| hamburger menu in the upper right and near the top of the
| list. Never set up a profile on this machine before, so
| maybe that could be related?
| mvx64 wrote:
| I found out about profiles recently and I just couldn't believe
| that that's the standard way to access them. Also, it's not
| obvious which profile you are currently on, so there are some
| silly but necessary workarounds like having a dummy bookmark
| with the profile name on each or something like that, while it
| could just be a string next to the address bar.
|
| It works really well though. Does exactly what I would expect
| and hope from such a feature.
| ifh-hn wrote:
| I have different coloured themes for my profiles. Simple and
| immediate.
| jobigoud wrote:
| Use -p in your shortcut to firefox and it will show the profile
| manager on launch, from that you can easily create a new
| profile or open a new window on existing one.
| jimangel2001 wrote:
| cli is not good ux
| throwaway150 wrote:
| Does this read like AI slop to anyone else?
|
| That whole "Profiles don't/aren't just $THIS; they're also $THAT"
| construction is classic LLM output. Then you've got the weird
| confusing inconsistencies like calling profiles a new feature
| when they aren't and there's also the rule of 3 ("avatars,
| colours, naming", "set boundaries, protect your information and
| make the internet a little calmer"). It all feels machine-
| written. Even the comparison of tidying your tabs to setting
| boundaries seems meaningless. It's just the sort of empty
| parallels AI loves to make.
|
| It's a short article but I really had to power through it because
| with every sentence I kept thinking, this is not written by a
| human. If it is AI-generated slop, that'd explain why some parts
| of it doesn't make any sense.
| gdulli wrote:
| An idea we'll have to start getting used to is that people who
| read enough of the slop might begin to emulate it without
| necessarily meaning to. The homogeneity will be contagious.
| krick wrote:
| I still don't quite understand where ChatGPT and its pals
| learned this. Sure, all these PR copywriters are notoriously
| bad at writing, but still, I don't think I often met all this
| crap in many texts before. I mean, if I did, I wouldn't be
| noticing it now as _that ChatGPT style_. So why does it write
| like that? Is it even how Anthropic models write as well
| (never used them)? Is it some OpenAI RL artifact, or is it
| something deeper, something about the language itself?
|
| I cannot even always quite formulate, what irks me about its
| output so much. Except for that "it's not X, it's Y" pattern.
| For non-English it may be easier, because it really just
| cannot use idioms properly, it's super irritating. But I
| wouldn't say it doesn't know English. Yet it somehow always
| manages to write in uncannily bad style.
| machomaster wrote:
| Looks like you are much worse at understanding writing than
| you think.
|
| Contrasting, rule of three, etc. are basic writing
| techniques that are common among good writers because they
| are good. This is the reason why AI learned to use them -
| because they work very well in communication.
| _flux wrote:
| I think the idiom by itself is good, and that could be the
| reason why LLMs prefer it: a hypothetical test groups liked
| it.
|
| The problem comes from that LLM prefers it _way too often_.
|
| And I suppose it would be a bit difficult to change it to
| actually be good: even if it just used it once per session,
| it might still choose to use it on every session, as it
| cannot see how much an idiom has been used in other ones.
| small_scombrus wrote:
| > $THING isn't just $THIS, it's also $THAT!
|
| Is pure marketing speak, which is also what I find a lot of LLM
| generated text sounds like
| hmstx wrote:
| Someone in a past thread here mentioned how they enjoyed the
| help of LLMs to generate all their PR marketing nonsense
| blurbs, because they looked just as good as the real thing.
| It might have been 2-3 years ago but I still joke about this
| with coworkers when the conversations shift to "AI".
| ryukoposting wrote:
| Profiles rock. When I was WFH I had a work profile and a personal
| profile. Password manager synced across the two profiles, really
| slick experience honestly. I do wish you could change sync
| settings on a per-profile basis though.
| jobigoud wrote:
| You can change sync settings on a per-profile basis. I have 6
| profiles, 4 of which I synchronize between different computers.
| They use different sync accounts. So for example on my personal
| profile I sync the passwords but not on the work profile.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| Hmm. I turned on bookmark sync in one profile, and my
| bookmarks on all my profiles slowly merged together over the
| course of ~5 minutes. Very annoying.
| xenophonf wrote:
| Firefox profiles suck. Their UX is so bad. Containers are better
| but still have their issues. I use Containerise plus Cookie
| AutoDelete plus Temporary Containers to give me what is
| effectively per-tab private browsing. The major downside is that
| I have to copy containers.json (which enumerates all of the
| dedicated containers I have defined, e.g., for Facebook), my
| Containerise rules (which automatically puts certain web sites
| into specific containers), and my Cookie AutoDelete config (which
| says which cookies to delete and when) among browsers manually. I
| wish more things supported Firefox's sync feature. I ended up
| adding them to my dotfiles, so it isn't too painful, but it
| definitely isn't grandparent friendly.
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| > Firefox profiles suck. Their UX is so bad.
|
| That's what these changes aim to fix. You're getting a
| Chromium-like profile switcher/manager.
|
| > Containers are better
|
| Containers are very good... for container stuff. Profiles allow
| us to have different bookmarks, settings, extensions, themes,
| etc. Different tools for different jobs. I use both!
| 1718627440 wrote:
| What are you all talking about? What is wrong with the
| existing ProfileManager?
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| If you look at about:profiles and compare it to the new UI
| or to what Chromium has offered for years, then I think
| you'll understand that the new UI is much better for the
| average user. There are also improvements for operating
| systems like macOS, where profiles always worked, but
| switching between them wasn't exactly a nice experience.
|
| You can still use the old profile manager. At the pace
| Mozilla moves, it will be there for years.
| Yizahi wrote:
| New feature blablabla... Hey, Mozilla - how about fixing the
| multiyear old bug, which has like several dozen tickets in
| bugzilla alone, about randomly losing all open tabs? What good
| are profiles to me, if one of most important of the secondary
| features of a browser is fundamentally broken and unreliable? I'm
| so pissed at Mozilla for their attitude (nothing new really,
| after the Ugly Bar update and those comments on reddit). If there
| was a real third browser on Windows I would have jumped ship,
| despite running FF since beta, both on PC and mobile. Just last
| month FF managed to kill all my open tabs a third time this year,
| and that's after no error, completely normal PC shutdown and boot
| next day. (ps: I know about scrounger)
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| Finally. I know that profiles have been supported for a long
| time, but about:profiles wasn't that user friendly and on macOS,
| profiles could also mess your dock icon, wouldn't open in the
| foreground, etc. It wasn't a good experience.
|
| I think the new profiles will cause some confusion (at least
| initially) because these profiles are not listed on the old
| about:profiles page and the old profiles are not listed on the
| new UI.
|
| Still, a good improvement for me. I no longer need to use the
| dev/nightly channels or 3rd party browsers based on FF just to
| have different bookmarks/settings/extensions. I'll need a way to
| add old profiles to the new UI though.
| notafox wrote:
| Forget about UI, just use CLI ./firefox
| -CreateProfile "profile-name
| /home/user/.mozilla/firefox/profile-path/"
| ./firefox -profile "/home/user/.mozilla/firefox/profile-path/"
|
| Create a separate icon for each profile and forget
| about:profiles interface.
|
| Disclaimer: I don't use macOS, but I'm sure it's similar to
| Linux in that regard. You'll need to change paths, of course.
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| That's great for part of HN users, just not for most Firefox
| users. I guess that's they already had the old interface and
| are making it more user friendly with the new UI :-)
| jsrcout wrote:
| Firefox profiles have worked really well for me for years. I only
| have two complaints. (a) I like to configure my tools, and
| setting prefs via user.js has just never really worked - anything
| there is ignored. Probably it's just because of my particular
| setup, but I eventually gave up on it. (b) It would be super nice
| if profiles could [edit:] share common prefs. I certainly don't
| expect the developers to make it a feature, and it seems like
| fixing (a) and using symlinks would do it. But overall, yeah
| profiles work great.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| > "if profiles could common prefs"
|
| sorry I couldn't quite parse this
| jobigoud wrote:
| The point of profiles is that they are completely isolated from
| each other, like separate installs, so I don't think starting
| to share preferences would be great.
| yla92 wrote:
| For a second, I thought it's for https://profiler.firefox.com
| krick wrote:
| So... what's changing? Profiles have been there for decade(s), is
| it just an alternative UI for folks who were unable to run
| firefox -p, or is there anything more substantial?
| codethief wrote:
| Came here to ask the same question. Maybe the news is there's
| now an easy way to theme them?
| mulakosag wrote:
| What a shocker right? I guess everyday normal people do dot use
| a command prompt much less open a terminal to open a browser
| profile.
|
| They like to click and icon and create/switch profile. Chrome,
| edge and many other browsers had this feature for ever. Not
| having ability to easily switch profiles is only reason I did
| not switch to Firefox full time even though I quite like the
| multi containers extension in Firefox for managing bazillion
| AWS accounts.
| damianh wrote:
| It's actually astonishing that it took mozilla folks the guts
| of 20 years to get around to this glaring UX gap.
| jobigoud wrote:
| Command prompt, terminal? What are you talking about?
|
| You just have to add the -p in the shortcut properties.
| bluebarbet wrote:
| Seems that there's no news. But it's great opportunity for
| profile users to exchange tips and gripe about missing
| features.
| BrenBarn wrote:
| I've used profiles for a long time, but they have some
| annoyances.
|
| One thing I really want is a comprehensive system for
| transferring/syncing only _certain_ data between profiles.
| Profiles contain some data that is specific to, well, a
| particular browsing profile (like open tabs), but also data that
| is really more specific to me as a person (like font
| preferences). And then each extension can have its own settings
| or data that I may or may not want to transfer. I always have to
| look up old articles on Mozilla wiki and hope they 're still
| accurate when I want to transfer certain data/settings between
| profiles while neither nuking everything nor copying everything.
| It would be great to have a sort of "data browser" that let me
| pick and choose certain data and then create a new profile from
| that.
|
| The other disappointing thing to me is how they talk about
| profiles (and container tabs) as related to different usage
| patterns like work, home, etc. I mean, yeah, that's cool, but
| what I really want (certainly from container tabs, sometimes from
| profiles as well) is _site_ isolation. I don 't just want one
| profile for my work Gmail and another for my personal Gmail. I
| want one container tab for "everything Google", isolated from the
| rest, to minimize Google's tracking. But, like I said above, I
| still want all my personal preferences uniform across these
| profiles/containers.
| notafox wrote:
| Have you tried user.js?
|
| You store browser preferences in it and firefox copies said
| preferences to prefs.js on startup (overwriting on conflict).
| pcchristie wrote:
| It's annoying these get grouped in the taskbar unlike Chrome
| profiles. Surely the main use case is to have a "Firefox" and a
| "Firefox (Work)" pinned separately to the taskbar and have them
| act as two completely different environments?
| wooger wrote:
| Curious, I've been running 2 profiles at once for a while on
| MacOS and they have separate icons / app management. It's a
| Windows thing.
|
| A way you might get around this (if acceptable) is to run one
| profile from a beta or developer version of Firefox which has a
| separate app path & icon and may result in the behaviour you
| want.
| kelvinjps10 wrote:
| I was waiting for this feature
| aborsy wrote:
| UX of profiles in Firefox is bad. See how Chrome does it.
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| This is about a new UI, very similar to what Chrome offers.
| Ingon wrote:
| Been using profiles for some years now and they are great. I
| usually start with the default profile, then navigate to
| "about:profiles" to open all I need. Thanks to profiles, when my
| manjaro install broke, I migrated to NixOS and all my browsing
| sessions were ready to use the way I left them. Getting a
| dedicated, more integrated UI for managing profile will be great.
|
| The one thing I'm missing is "incognito" profiles - e.g. spawn a
| temporary profile (without any identity attached) easily when I'm
| researching/navigating unusual sites and kill it once I'm done.
| Having multiple of these would be a great improvement over normal
| incognito windows (which share identities).
| jobigoud wrote:
| > I usually start with the default profile, then navigate to
| "about:profiles" to open all I need.
|
| Just add -p in the shortcut properties to start on the profile
| manager.
| thyrsus wrote:
| I've got Firefox 144.2 on Android; are profiles available there?
| If so, how does one use them?
| martinlofgren wrote:
| No, it's not available for Android or iOS:
|
| https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-management#w_is...
| goku12 wrote:
| Here is my wishlist with respect to browser profiles and
| containers. While the chances that I'll get them are low, I hope
| it inspires people to think bigger a bit more. It may be too hard
| on the current generation of web engines, but perhaps the next
| generation can plan better in advance.
|
| We're doing profiles and containers wrong. There are numerous
| other free software that demonstrate better examples. Why do we
| have two solutions when both are about isolation of data and
| execution? Browsers should take inspiration from how the Linux
| kernel does it using namespaces (and similar facilities in other
| kernels, eg: BSD jails). Divide isolation into different contexts
| like the different types of namespaces. There should be different
| contexts for isolating: - cookies policies and sharing - local
| data - extension availability and sharing - network access
| (direct internet, proxy, VPN, TOR, etc) - password stores -
| lifetime (permanent, limited-time, single-use) - web api
| availability (like no-js contexts, no-drm contexts, etc) -
| browser features - browsing history - sync accounts - bookmarks -
| tab configuration and state - theming - ad block profiles -
| website URL affinity (eg: don't open FB here, open YT only here,
| etc) - resource allocations (like CPU, RAM, etc) - redirection
| profiles (like to invidious, xitter, etc)
|
| Different profiles/containers can be created by mixing and
| matching these isolation contexts. For example you can have two
| different profiles that sharing password managers, but one for
| use with VPN and one without. All the current uses of profiles
| and containers can be met with this concept - including private
| browsing. You could even have TOR browsing in the same browser.
| While at it, you could even simulate resource allocations like
| cgroups (already mentioned in the list).
|
| All these might make you wonder if it isn't too complicated for
| ordinary people to use. Solutions for that exist in the OS space
| too. We have tools like docker, lxc and even bubblewrap to wrap
| over these low level complexities and present a simpler UI. In
| the browser, you could have different higher level plugins to
| setup profiles easily in specific manner. We can click 'private
| browsing' that will isolate a profile in every context by default
| (and offer to share anything else as it seems fit to you). You
| could have plugins that maintain different profiles for each of
| your gmail/workspace accounts. You could have a plugin that
| allows you to temporarily share OIDC SSO across profiles
| (currently an annoying problems with browser containers.) And
| finally, the power users may be able to script these low-level
| isolation contexts just the way they want it.
|
| The next is how pages are displayed. Today we have full-window
| pages with multiple pages supported by tabs. But those who use
| browsers for anything serious, besides watching cat videos or
| doom scrolling on social media know how frustrating it is to not
| be able to browse two pages side-by-side. Some browsers like Zen
| do support that workflow, while others can get it using
| extensions. But we could go much further. Dividing windows is a
| solved problem that's very well done in applications like
| Blender, Emacs, VSCode and other IDEs. You should be able to
| divide the window into any arbitrary layout, with each pane (a
| subdivision of a window) showing one of the open pages. Emacs
| shows this with the concept of windows (which are panes) and
| buffers. Blender gives the same facility. The browser must be
| able to hold hundreds of such layouts along with their page
| assignments. To make it easy for the common user, these layouts
| can be presented as tabs to the user. Web pages should also be
| presented as a single-pane layout for that page, so that the user
| is able to close it easily without having to think about the
| distinction between a page, a tab and a pane like the way you
| need to know on Emacs.
|
| Each page can be a different process with its own profile
| assignment and browsing history tree. The GUI should be a
| separate process. The amount of code shared between those
| processes should be based on security considerations. This way,
| we can have browser user profile, office profile, private
| browsing profile, developer profile and TOR profile all on the
| same window.
|
| But the window layout shouldn't stop there. Currently, the menu
| bars, tab bar/sidebar, toolbars, address bar etc consume too much
| space. Imagine if it was the same case for desktops? Desktops
| take only a tiny fraction of the screen space in the form of the
| status bar or the dock. Even that is optional in many cases and
| can be hidden when not in use. The best way to layout the pages
| on a window IMHO, is how the tiling window managers do it.
| Browsers like Firefox already treat the UI like HTML+CSS. But
| it's on a different plane from the page UI - so much so that you
| need to start the debugger console in a different mode to control
| it. But if the tabs, status bars and menu bars used the same
| layout as regular pages (but with special UI control privileges),
| you'll get numerous options to design it the way you prefer and
| hide them easily.
|
| To take it a bit further, I really like the concept of Wayland
| layer shells that allow you to make UI overlays. If you can make
| the controls into overlays, you could have per-pane controls like
| address bars and nav buttons that can be collapsed into small
| non-intrusive semitransparent UI buttons. This way, the UI can be
| truly full screen, easy to setup and easy to navigate.
|
| I know that this is a tall order to achieve. But it costs nothing
| to dream, I guess.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| > We're doing profiles and containers wrong. There are numerous
| other free software that demonstrate better examples.
|
| Profiles are about separating Settings and user history, not
| for security isolation. If you want to do that use the OS?
|
| > Today we have full-window pages with multiple pages supported
| by tabs. But those who use browsers for anything serious,
| besides watching cat videos or doom scrolling on social media
| know how frustrating it is to not be able to browse two pages
| side-by-side.
|
| Why should the browser implement a window manager, when the
| window manager already exists? What stops you from putting two
| tabs side-by-side right now?
|
| > But the window layout shouldn't stop there. Currently, the
| menu bars, tab bar/sidebar, toolbars, address bar etc consume
| too much space.
|
| You know, that you can put the menubar into the OS panel?
| goku12 wrote:
| > Profiles are about separating Settings and user history,
| not for security isolation.
|
| Where does it say that? Using profiles is currently like
| using different browsers altogether. How does that preclude
| security isolation? All that aside, how did you reach the
| conclusion if you read what I wrote? I was talking about a
| single unified mechanism to consolidate the various types of
| isolations, security or not, in an easily understandablr
| manner. There are also some very annoying papercuts that I
| believe will be solved with that.
|
| > If you want to do that use the OS?
|
| > Why should the browser implement a window manager, when the
| window manager already exists?
|
| If you haven't noticed, the browser has grown in the past
| quarter of a century into a full-fledged OS-level platform
| with a complex GUI, a few dozen technologies, equally
| numerous APIs, a decent sandbox and an entire VM to run
| applications written in any of a few dozen programming
| languages. It's easier to write a small OS compared to a
| small browser. Implementing window managers inside a browser
| is not very hard or unusual. Some browsers do it in their
| main UI too. I was suggesting an extension of that concept.
| If it can improve the UX of a browser, why insist on
| gatekeeping it to the OS window manager?
|
| > What stops you from putting two tabs side-by-side right
| now?
|
| Where have you ever seen that done satisfactorily? Forget the
| numerous bars and panels all over the place that take up so
| much space. When have you ever been able to share information
| seamlessly like in a single window? It's so frustrating that
| it's a joke as a solution.
|
| > You know, that you can put the menubar into the OS panel?
|
| On which platform? How many WMs/DEs you know offer that
| facility? Unlike on MacOS where you can do that, window
| managers have a few dozen menu bars that aren't even
| compatible with each other. How many OS panels will each
| browser have to integrate with? Here instead, I'm suggesting
| the use of a technology that's already there - the web
| engine. In fact, that's how most browsers implement their
| main UI already. But it's not quite well integrated with the
| engine, at least in Firefox. My suggestion was to remove that
| limitation. You're objecting to something that's already
| there.
|
| If you need something to be upset about browsers, there are
| plenty of egregious changes being pushed down the throats of
| the users. In contrast, I wasn't suggesting anything that the
| user has to accept without questions. It's also something
| that can be done with the building blocks already available.
| In fact, the changes you object to are already being
| partially implemented by many projects and are well-received
| by users as far as I can see. If we are this cynical about
| trying out great ideas from other platforms, what sort of
| progress are we expecting anyway?
| lynndotpy wrote:
| Wanted this for years, and was one of the blockers that made
| Firefox impossible to really use. It _looks_ like they 're
| copying Chromium's UI (which is good, since it was superior to
| Firefox's about:profiles, for reasons others have mentioned).
|
| But neither this post, nor the splash screen which links to this,
| nor any of the menu options, actually say how to use "profiles".
| I can't find it in an internet search either, instead coming up
| with Firefox's old about:profiles solution. Nor is it enabled
| using the little user icon in the browser bar, nor is it
| activated with the same shortcut as Chromium profiles.
|
| I eventually found it in their knowledge base, and it appears to
| be locked behind a sign in button under the profile icon? Or my
| (up to date) browser lacks the button? This is such a confusing
| experience.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Some folks under https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45829275
| seem to say that there's an about:config to force enable it, or
| you could wait for it to get rolled out to you.
| carderne wrote:
| Here it is for anyone else who struggled:
|
| https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-management
| 1718627440 wrote:
| What do you mean? Firefox has had profiles for decades. What is
| wrong with the Profile Manager?
| lynndotpy wrote:
| The user experience was abysmal, it was practically a non-
| feature. Can't be invoked quickly using two keyboard
| shortcuts, does not divide into simple and portable folders,
| etc.
|
| This update seems to fix those problems, by copying
| Chromium's UX.
| larusso wrote:
| I use containers in Firefox and have good to semi good
| experience. Will try this out. My main issue with containers so
| far is SSO. I have some things like GitHub etc I like to keep in
| my coding container. Then domains that only belong to work. But
| my company uses SSO in GitHub. It makes the usage really awkward.
| Start in GitHub container, login jumps to Work container and
| links back to GitHub container and fails since the cookies
| created by the login container are not set. But to separate
| shopping and finance related things it works great. But I will
| give this a go since I have finally a harder separation between
| work and private usage of my coding and ai usage etc.
| philip-b wrote:
| So, can I make it that when I click a URL in another program,
| Firefox would ask me which profile to use?
| hofrogs wrote:
| I'm curious about that too. Currently it just uses the default
| one.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| That's ... the current behaviour? At least on Debian Firefox
| ESR 115, and also on all versions I remember to have used.
| jobigoud wrote:
| For me that's how it works unless I already have a Firefox
| window opened. If I have multiple windows of different profiles
| already open (which happens all the time) it may add it to the
| wrong one, so I sometimes need to drag and drop the tab between
| the windows.
| ifh-hn wrote:
| I've been using Firefox profiles for years, never had an issue
| with them, the UI, or how to access the functionality. Sure it
| wasn't immediately easy to find and use but I never really got a
| lot of the criticism. Coloured themes (which them seem to be
| integrating) was an easy way to differentiate the profile I was
| using, especially when I had multiple open at once.
|
| Glad it's getting an update, hope it doesn't ruin a decent
| feature.
| Scipio_Afri wrote:
| Would really be great to move windows or tab groups between
| different profiles; Edge offers this. Sometimes you don't realize
| what profile you're in and you start doing stuff in your personal
| profile that doesn't fit there. With firefox right now there is
| no way to select and move any tabs, tab groups or windows to the
| profile that is best suited for those links.
| 037 wrote:
| It could be a privacy risk, though, because by directly moving
| a URL (and all its parameters) to another profile, it might be
| easy to link them together on the server side. It's not
| necessarily a problem, but it's definitely important to be
| aware of, since one of the main uses of profiles is precisely
| isolation for privacy and security.
| nine_k wrote:
| Not even drag and drop to the window with a different profile?
| 1718627440 wrote:
| Does Edge do any more then open the same URL in another
| profile? In that case you can do this in Firefox by drag-and-
| dropping the URL.
| jobigoud wrote:
| I do it all the time I'm not sure what you are talking about.
|
| I use Tree Style Tabs extension (obviously), so maybe the
| feature is coming from there?
|
| You can definitely drag and drop a tab from one window to
| another, target window can be in a different profile.
|
| You can select multiple tabs with SHIFT and then drag and drop
| them to the other window, no problem.
| framtidsljus wrote:
| I've been using this hack for a while now: Firefox developer
| edition as my "work" profile and the regular Firefox for personal
| browsing.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| I'd been doing that somewhat too, but also a mix of the old
| -ProfileManager. The new UI is shiny enough I may consider
| consolidating to just one Edition, though I haven't decided
| which Edition yet.
|
| (Fun fact, you can even switch to the Developer Edition default
| profile from regular Firefox with the -ProfileManager though
| that is not generally a good idea because Developer Edition is
| intentionally a half-step version or two ahead of "retail"
| Firefox. Developer Edition assumes you don't mind being a
| little bit closer to the bleeding edge. Still not the same as
| using Firefox Nightly as your daily driver, but still often a
| "power user preview" version.)
| icf80 wrote:
| I dont have the option yet! The menu entry is missing for me.
| 6c696e7578 wrote:
| If you have the luxury, switch to different OS user accounts.
| mr_shopping for online buying, mr_games for games, .. mr_rascal
| for you know what. The attack surface isn't any different, but
| the blast radius might be.
| darkwater wrote:
| At this point better going directly with Qubes OS, where each
| program is a separated VM, no?
| HunOL wrote:
| I hope that they will not remove old UI for profiles and do not
| decide to show old profiles in new UI.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| How does that differ from the existing profiles? Firefox has had
| profiles for decades.
| spiffyk wrote:
| This is introducing a friendlier profile management GUI for
| non-power-users, I believe.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| What is the problem with the current ProfileManager?
| icf80 wrote:
| the new profile UI will not show you the old ones!
| 1718627440 wrote:
| Sounds like a problem with the new UI, rather than the
| old. Will the old show profiles created in the new UI?
| icf80 wrote:
| no
| worble wrote:
| For anyone as confused as I was, even if you're part of the
| rollout it will NOT migrate your old profiles. So this is nice
| and all, but completely useless to me until I can spend the time
| recreating my profiles on the new interface.
|
| Seriously, what the hell Mozilla?
| Sharlin wrote:
| I presume they counted on the fact that almost nobody actually
| used the old (extremely obscure) profile system.
| freehorse wrote:
| They should make it a bit more clear they added features that
| were not there before and what, as it is not clear to me what has
| changed from before that I tried using them. Apparently it seems
| better now, but no wonder most commenters do not realise this is
| about some new features not about the old.
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| What's new now? Just the UI for picking profiles? The article
| contains absolutely no details.
| freehorse wrote:
| Yeah, that is exactly the problem.
|
| So far I see that it is easier to create/open/swap between
| different profiles (before the easiest way was literally the
| terminal). There is a small icon next to firefox dock icon on
| macos for each profile that you can choose, which I do not
| remember before. So you can easily distinguish which icon
| corresponds to which profile window. And that you can edit
| the theme for each profile easier.
| wongarsu wrote:
| The article links to https://support.mozilla.org/en-
| US/kb/profile-management. From my memory of how profiles
| worked previously it's mostly a fresh coat of paint for
| things you could do before.
|
| The two most exciting things to me:
|
| 1. You can now launch and manage profiles from a menu hidden
| in the account menu (feels like the wrong place to put it,
| but shows up for me even though I'm not signed in)
|
| 2. Mozilla actually cares about profiles again. The feature
| felt mostly abandoned before, nearly inaccessible without
| command line flags or the very bare-bones and ugly
| about:profiles
| ibejoeb wrote:
| Still difficult to tell for me. I enabled
| `browser.profiles.enabled` and now there's Profiles in the
| hamburger menu. However, it only shows a default profile. It
| does not show any other existing profiles.
| icf80 wrote:
| You cannot see the old profiles using the new UI for profiles.
| AiAi wrote:
| I just enabled it via about:config with the option
| browser.profiles.enabled, but it didn't show my existing profiles
| that appear on about:profiles.
| emsign wrote:
| A profile for each site you visit by default please
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| Profiles isolate settings, bookmarks, history, etc.
|
| It's not feasible to isolate these "per site".
| addend wrote:
| Is there a quick way to copy some bookmarks from one firefox
| profile to another? Drag and drop from bookmark library popup
| window (ctrl+shift+o) in profileA to equivalent window in
| profileB fails.
| droningparrot wrote:
| The confusing part of this is there are now two distinct kinds of
| profiles: the old profiles that you create through about:profiles
| and the new profiles that you create in this profile switcher,
| which appear to be nested within the old profile
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