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You actually can do something like this with Firefox. If you load Firefox with the "-ProfileManager" switch (and you don't have another Firefox window open; see
by Sophira 10y ago
You actually can do something like this with Firefox. If you load Firefox with the "-ProfileManager" switch (and you don't have another Firefox window open; see below for how to get round this), it'll open a window where you can choose your user profile. You can create and delete profiles from there, and a new profile is exactly the same as a completely new browser installation. (This includes any settings you may have for automatic browser updates; if you've turned these off on your normal profile, the first thing you should do on the new profile is turn off the automatic browser updates again, as browser updates are global and not per-profile.)
If you like, you can uncheck the "Use the selected profile without asking at startup" checkbox to have the window show up every time you start Firefox (which is defined as loading Firefox when there's no Firefox window already open). Doing this has the additional side benefit that if an application tries to open Firefox and load a new URL when you don't have any Firefox windows open, you'll be alerted to it by the Choose User Profile box - very useful if your normal profile takes a long time to load!
If you want, you can add the "-no-remote" switch to tell a new Firefox process not to connect with any existing one, which will allow you to open a new profile in a different browser window while you've still got the original running in other windows. However, those windows will share the same taskbar grouping, so I'd recommend you apply a different theme to the new profile to allow you to distinguish the two.
(Note: You should not use "-no-remote" by default, as a browser profile can only be open by one process at a time and you won't be able to open new windows through your shortcut icon.)
Of course, none of this will defeat the multiple-browser fingerprinting techniques mentioned in the article, but it's still incredibly useful.
I'm not sure if there's an equivalent in Chrome, or at least one that goes as far as Firefox does.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]