16 ms·

Firefox Multi-Account Containers

850 points by nachtigall 9y ago

nicoburns 9y ago
This is incredibly useful. It's basically like Chrome's 'profiles', except per-tab rather than per-window. So I can now have my personal gmail, my work gmail, and the 3rd gmail account for a client set next to each other, and colour coded. This, along with the speed improvements (both the UI and content processes) in Firefox 55 have made it my default browser for the first time since Chrome was released.
- robin_reala 9y ago
  Look forwards to 57 then because that’s a good deal faster than 55.
- sametmax 9y ago
  Yes, best feature ever. I've been giving it a try for some time now since it came out in test pilot and it's beautiful. Open your google/twitter/whatever accounts in separate profiles, et you get the benefits of being "always logged in" with no tracking on your main session. Having multiple github accounts next to each others is a bliss and prevent so many stupid mistakes I used to make, like commenting with the wrong identity on a PR. Combined with the tab group extension, it makes currently Firefox the most productive browser experience I had in years.
  - philsnow 9y ago
    > you get the benefits of being "always logged in" with no tracking on your main session _well_ what about web sites that use information about your browser that isn't stored in cookies? Check out https://panopticlick.eff.org/ https://panopticlick.eff.org/ Unless Firefox has a story to prevent this kind of tracking, don't rely on multiple profiles for any important separation you're trying to keep.
    - diafygi 9y ago
      What should you rely on?
      - philsnow 9y ago
        good question, I don't personally have such needs so I haven't investigated it.
      - nix0n 9y ago
        EFF's Privacy Badger extension [0] should help a little, but if you really need to avoid tracking you'll need something more like Tor. [0]https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://www.eff.org/privacybadger
        arianvanp 9y ago
        Torbrowser actually warns to not resize your browser as the resize allows people to fingerprint you
    - ChrisSD 9y ago
      They do have tracking protection (basically a content blocker) but by default it's only enabled in private mode.
    - genghizkhan 9y ago
      If you enable 'privacy.resistFingerprinting' in your about:config, you get substantially harder to track. The caveat is that there's a small (albeit noticeable) performance delta.
      - viseztrance 9y ago
        That attribute is part of ongoing work and it's disabled for a reason. Currently it doesn't protect you against canvas or webgl fingerprinting.
        genghizkhan 9y ago
- verytrivial 9y ago
  Yes! I've said this since day zero of the Chrome profile implementation we were all forced^H^H^Hstrongly encouraged to evaluate. This does not work on a Social web, at least not for most people. Humans have one technical identity, but they have multiple personas, and they adapt them per context. We have done so for thousands of years and to force every interactive to be viewed in the context of every other robs people of normal expectations of freedom.
- dingaling 9y ago
  However it doesn't appear to containerize extensions / add-ons, so it's probably still prudent to use a separate clean profile for banking to avoid the risk of malicious data-slurping add-ons. Despite their claims for it: "Maybe you want to keep your bank’s website farther away from your Pinterest board"
  - oAlbe 9y ago
    Would you trust using a potential "data-slurping" add-on at all? I honestly wouldn't, neither for my bank info, nor for my search queries. Just be mindful of what add-ons you install.
    - grok2 9y ago
      I think the OP is sorta saying the same thing -- they perhaps don't want their banking container to see add-ons (except the container add-on :-)). It's perhaps okay to be relaxed about some add-ons in some environments, but not in all environments.
      - jlgaddis 9y ago
        Isn't this what profiles were designed for?
        efreak 9y ago
        I always thought profiles we're designed for multiple users on one login; they've been around for ages, and I assumed it was because windows 98 wasn't good with multiple profiles/users.
  - mderazon 9y ago
    This is the reason it's not useful for me I have separate LastPass accounts on each chrome profile (one for work and for personal use) and there's no way to keep them separate like this
    - 9y ago
- rdiddly 9y ago
  Yes Firefox seems to be making big strides, and I find myself using it more often these days. It's a ripe environment for them right now too, with many more of the general public growing wary of Google (kind of the new Microsoft, in Mozilla/Netscape terms). If I didn't have to test stuff in Chrome, I'd probably be ready (as of FF55) to uninstall it altogether. Even the Firefox dev tools are better than Chrome in my opinion.
  - DavideNL 9y ago
    I agree, although the fact that pinch-to-zoom still sucks big time in Firefox (in comparison to Safari and Chrome/Chromium) annoys me so much, in the end i always keep avoiding Firefox: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688990 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688990 It sooo much easier when reading articles to be able to zoom in to the 'article text only' in Safari/Chromium.
- Sylos 9y ago
  For the record, Firefox does also have profiles like Chrome has them: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-... Alternatively type "about:profiles" into the URL-bar, which you can also bookmark.
  - efreak 9y ago
    Unlike chrome, you can't have multiple Firefox profiles running simultaneously unless you're using two separate installs. Even then, one has to be nightly/developer/etc, or it refused to start.
    - RobMurray 9y ago
      I use multiple firefox profiles at the same time and it works fine. try firefox -no-remote -p
    - 482794793792894 9y ago
      You can. As the other commenter wrote `firefox -no-remote -P` works. You can also add the name of a profile after the "-P" to launch directly into that profile. If you're not on Windows, you can also instead use `firefox -new-instance -P`, which is better, because -no-remote cuts off communication from other applications to that Firefox instance, meaning that you can't open links from those other applications inside a Firefox instance that's been started with -no-remote. The aforementioned "about:profiles" also has a button "Launch profile in new browser", which is much easier than the above methods, but those are useful, if you for example want desktop shortcut for your individual profiles.
- velobro 9y ago
  This is huge! I work for an IT consulting firm and we have accounts for each client which I store in their unique chrome profiles. Keeps things organized but switching between windows can get tedious at times so having them per-tab is making me switch back to Firefox
wakkaflokka 9y ago
I'm on the nightly and it says the extension is not compatible with my version of Firefox. Is this only for <56?
- jacobmischka 9y ago
  Nightly has this built in actually, though the icon looks a little different. Enable it in about:preferences#general in the Tabs section. The icon looks like a file cabinet.
  - chrismorgan 9y ago
    The built-in functionality doesn’t have nice things like “always open this site in such-and-such a container”.
    - evilpie 9y ago
      You can still install the github version in addition to that, which should give you that feature again! https://github.com/mozilla/testpilot-containers#readme https://github.com/mozilla/testpilot-containers#readme
      - chrismorgan 9y ago
        Indeed: that’s how I use it. (I use this to keep work and personal stuff separate because of a couple of services that don’t support multiple simultaneous logins.)
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
anovikov 9y ago
Will be cool for many Upwork account brokers
ihateneckbeards 9y ago
That's great, I hate when Youtube recommends me all kinds of videos about turtles just because I stumbled over a video of turtle 6 months ago
- 0xFFC 9y ago
  That is my whole problem with this recent machine learning approach has been taken off in last decade. I don't have anything against AI. But there is got to be a way to sign this off. Sadly google thend to shove it in people throats.
  - notheguyouthink 9y ago
    Agreed, and it's one of the reasons I've switched off of everything google I can. Youtube and Google Voice are the only things left. Oh and my Pixel XL phone, but I'll be switching to the iPhone X in Jan / Fed (whenever it goes carrier free). I hate not knowing what consequences my actions are going to have.
- mjard 9y ago
  I've found it useful to purge my Youtube history every once in a while. If I click on random Youtube links on irc, they always get opened in a private/incognito session. I'm annoyed this is something that I think about.
  - efreak 9y ago
    It's not terribly useful for people who open stuff from within the browser, but for the past couple of years I've actually had my default browser in Windows set to incognito/private mode of whatever browser I'm using. This way I don't have to think about it, and I also don't have to deal with things like Gmail deciding that I've already seen some emails because my inbox loaded in a background tab.
    - breakingcups 9y ago
      Heh, a bit like Firefox Focus on Android. That's a great idea.
akerro 9y ago
How did they know I have multiple personalities? Are they watching me?
- fukusa 9y ago
  They are watching all of you.
- jccalhoun 9y ago
  one of you told on you
nothrabannosir 9y ago
I've been using this for over a month now, and while I'm convinced it's the right idea, the implementation leaves much to be desired. Currently, it costs more effort than it's worth. [EDIT: comments show this does exist! great] Missing: easy way to open a new tab in a specific profile. ctrl-T always opens in Default profile, not the one you're on. So have to go File menu -> New tab -> select profile. And that menu changes items around slightly, so no muscle memory. I end up going to a tab already open, middle clicking a random link, ctrl-L, and using that as a fresh tab. I see on their little drawings they show some cool drop down under the + button at the right of the tab row, but I can't find any such functionality. [EDIT: Comments show exists. Good enough!] Missing: a way to fix certain hosts to certain profiles. E.g. {XXX.myclient.com -> always open in "Client X" tab}. E.g. with links from GitHub (which is client independent) into custom CIs (jenkins etc). You forget, "why isn't this logged in? oh, profiles", go back, right click the link, open in new container -> select container. Ugh. Missing: a way to disallow any non-whitelisted hosts from a tab. E.g. having a gmail tab is useless, because every link you click will open in that profile (and you won't notice because hey, it works) and now your gmail credentials and cookies are available there. Again defeats the purpose. Especially for a "Banking" tab, for example. Missing: clear warning that this doesn't do anything meaningful against tracking. It's a complete waste of time to separate your Facebook into a separate profile if you don't want to be tracked across other domains. Fingerprinting goes well beyond cookies. They don't need your account cookie to link your visits. Missing: segmentation of plugins!! Different NoScript or µblock settings per profile? yes please! Or even just native Firefox settings (3rd party cookies, clearing policy, etc) per website per profile would be lovely. All in all: I'm stubborn so I'll keep using it, but I'll be honest: there's quite a low ROI on them, as they are. Good start, hope they improve. EDIT: Another missing: clear cookies only from a certain profile. E.g. discover I've accidentally been browsing youtube in work profile (or whatever), I want to delete all youtube cookies _but only from that profile_. Can't do it. I encounter this problem often with GMail, where I want to clear a friend's login but not log out all my sessions from different containers. (PS: Sorry for using "profile" and "container" interchangeably---it was a bit stream of consciousness. I mean "container" for both words).
- ChrisSD 9y ago
  > Missing: easy way to open a new tab in a specific profile Long click the new tab button then select the profile. Or just click the button on the toolbar and select the profile. > Missing: a way to fix certain hosts to certain profiles. When you click the toolbar button, you get the option to always open in the current container.
wslh 9y ago
For historical reasons I cannot avoid to mention that I achieved this with my Cookiepie extension 11 years ago (a billon Internet years ago indeed): https://youtu.be/2Pfg-kJ4nAw https://youtu.be/2Pfg-kJ4nAw Cookiepie was written only in JavaScript and was very hackish because Firefox APIs didn't have a way to correlate network requests with the tab in the UI, so I traversed network and UI objects recursively to find unknown relationships between them. It was very difficult to support because even minor Firefox releases broke it. I even posted my Cookiepie extension for the first Firefox extension contest [1] and there was no prize or mention for it. [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2006/03/mozilla-announces-winners-of-extend-firefox-competition/ https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2006/03/mozilla-announces-win...
- groovecoder 9y ago
  As a Firefox engineer, then, let me say props for being ahead of your time! (And waaaaay ahead of mine - I'm new to PrivSec engineering at Firefox) I'm not sure if Cookiepie directly inspired the engineers who built originAttributes and Containers features here, but after working with this Firefox team I can definitely say that the core Containers tech is not hackish at all - great engineers here. Anyway, thanks for contributing!
  - fabrice_d 9y ago
    originAttributes and Containers can be traced back to the appId cookie/storage separation implemented for b2g (aka FirefoxOS) apps. I remember that baku wrote an early Fx add-on abusing appIds and docShells to provide a container-like functionality.
    - bholley 9y ago
      In more detail: For the original FirefoxOS security model, sicking and jlebar rototilled all the security checks in the codebase to switch from comparing origins to comparing (origin, appId, isInMozBrowser) tuples. Later on, for the eventually-abandoned FirefoxOS New Security Model (NSec), we needed to pass around a signed package id instead. So the options on the table were to rototill the codebase again, or to do something out of band with the cookie service (sicking's proposal). When I found out about this I wasn't particularly happy with either option, and used my sec module ownership to insert myself into the discussion, and push for a more general approach (i.e. OriginAttributes). Sicking was initially kind of peeved about this, because they were on a deadline, but eventually came around. So we did one more pass of the rototiller to switch everything from appId+mozBrowser to the general and extensible mechanism. Years later, FirefoxOS is no more, but OriginAttributes are still used to implement Private Browsing, Containers, and First-Party Isolation. Here's to general/reusable solutions!
raimue 9y ago
I am a long-time user of the deprecated Multifox extension and I have switched to the Firefox containers ever since they have been introduced to the stable releases about a year ago. This feature is actually builtin in Firefox, you only need to change some config settings to enable the UI (probably this is also all what the linked extension does?). As Multifox was one of the old XUL/XPCOM extensions, I am glad that this functionality was integrated natively before Firefox 57 will disable all extensions that are not WebExtensions. It is a great way to login to multiple accounts on various sites such as Twitter, without going through the hassle of a full logout/login cycle. You can use the accounts side-by-side in different tabs, which will be color coded to indicate which container they belong to. More details can be found on the Mozilla wiki: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Project/Containers https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Projec...
- groovecoder 9y ago
  The add-on flips the config setting, but also: 1. Implements the browserAction pop-up UI for managing containers & tabs 2. Adds the ability to assign sites to always open in a certain container
  - xahrepap 9y ago
    how do you do #2? I can't find it? For example, I want Facebook to always open in my "Facebook" container. EDIT: I guess I just had to ask then my brain figured it out. :) Open the page in the container you want, right click the extension icon and choose "Always open in this container"
    - groovecoder 9y ago
      You can also assign the site to the Container in the browserAction pop-up UI.
wutwutwutwut 9y ago
I just want to be able to open a new tab in a brand new container. Similar to File->New Session in Internet Explorer. If I want to test my web app with say 4 different identities then figuring out which container is "free" becomes cumbersome.
- the8472 9y ago
  Extensions can spawn new containers, so this should be easy to implement if you want to. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/contextualIdentities https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/AP...
  - groovecoder 9y ago
    In fact, "Containers on the Go" seems to do this: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/containers-on-the-go/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/containers-on...
teekert 9y ago
Huh? Did I just add this and got a "Firefox screenshots" icon with it?
- sp332 9y ago
  That's a built-in Firefox feature. https://screenshots.firefox.com/ https://screenshots.firefox.com/ I thought it was only included in Nightly builds but I guess they pushed it to Beta?
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    I think they pushed it to main? It appeared unsolicited on my toolbar (on Kubuntu) with last update I did -- I would have thought they'd been warded off adding unrequested feature buttons by now. Would it be that hard to have an update page that says "do you want to add $commercialTieInButton"?
    - sp332 9y ago
      There's no commercial tie-in though. It's 100% first-party.
      - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
        It was more a general point, like for the Telefonica button, the Pocket button, etc., this links to a particular image upload tool though doesn't it? Only looked at it long enough to find if I'd got malware.
        sp332 9y ago
        Yes but it's run and hosted by Firefox. It's even covered by the Firefox privacy notice.
    - 482794793792894 9y ago
      Is that really so much different than just sticking a button there and then if you don't want it, you remove that button? If they make it opt-in like you suggest, then a good number of casual users will not understand, because they can't try it without opting in, and therefore ultimately not opt-in, even though they would probably like this feature. (They've had it in the Test Pilot project like the above and got a very good response to it.)
nasredin 9y ago
Am I in a paralel universe where Firefox updates bring useful features, make the browser look less like Chrome and do not break backwards compatability with thousands of extensions? Integrate Tor and you might suddenly stop being ShittierChrome and stop losing your market share.
- groovecoder 9y ago
  I like where your head is at ... if not your choice of words. Check out https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Tor_Uplift https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Tor_Uplift
maxerickson 9y ago
Can any browser historian explain why the original models of cookie sharing weren't more like this? I figure it comes down to some combination of lack of consideration and performance concerns, but that is just speculation. I suppose restricted cookie sharing is also a lot more complicated for the user.
notheguyouthink 9y ago
Cool! As an aside, I've been migrating away from Chrome for a while - and I posted here a while back being dismayed by how terrible Firefox was, how slow/etc it was, etc. Many people suggested I switch to nightly. Nightly is .. a night and day experience. I've been fully switched from Chrome now, thanks to Firefox. Note that on OSX I've had no complaints with Safari as my Chrome replacement, so I've stuck with them - but on windows it's all Firefox. Keep up the great work guys, the new stuff is amazing. Hope you can push it to stable branch soon for people. :)
- Brakenshire 9y ago
  Wow, nightly is really impressive. Some operations like opening videos are crazily fast, almost feels native. One conspicuous absence is that there's no way to save a web app to desktop, I use that a lot with Chromium on Linux.
  - sf_rob 9y ago
    You're likely experiencing the major performance improvements that come along with Firefox 57. In a few weeks the general release should feel that fast without some of the trade-offs that come with Nightly. The biggest downside to 57 I'm experiencing is that not all extensions have been updated to the new web extensions framework, so there are some workflows that don't work for me at the moment (LastPass, which is working on a new release, and Stylish, which I'm not sure will update).
    - clouddrover 9y ago
      > and Stylish, which I'm not sure will update Stylish has a Chrome version so I'd guess they'll port that to Firefox for 57+. In the meantime there's Stylus, which is a fork of the Chrome version of Stylish: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/styl-us/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/styl-us/
    - rhn_mk1 9y ago
      Be careful about Stylish - since it was sold, it stirred a lot of the community by dropping the original ideals and including tracking software. The change of hands happened after the last Firefox version update, so it should be safe for the time being. If you follow why the Stylus extension was made (port from Chrome's Stylish), you can find more explanations.
jancsika 9y ago
> [...] so Exhaustive Shopping Researcher Self can steer clear of Humble Bragging Social Self, and Super Professional Work Self can go about the bizness without worrying about being followed by those other two. Let's be crystal clear-- this feature lets Humble Bragging Social Self, Super Professional Work Self et al stay logged in to Gmail/etc. at the same time. End of feature. > Each Container stores cookies separately, so you can log into the same site with different accounts and online trackers can’t easily connect the browsing. Cool! This must be what McGee uses on NCIS to break through those CIA firewalls while avoiding detection. And yes-- I know an NCIS character's name and skills. Luckily, I'm using Firefox Multi-Account Containers so there's no way to shame the real me for it. :)
mey 9y ago
I use Chrome profiles heavily, so I am very happy Firefox is exploring this feature. When doing consulting, I like to keep different client activities isolated to their own profile, so I have less things to juggle if they use the same cloud service (AWS, G Suite, Jira, etc). One limitation I currently see to that workflow (that works better for me in Chrome) is that this appears to all reside under a single Firefox Account which essentially creates master set of data to Sync. I would like to be able to setup Containers to be pegged to different Firefox Accounts (or not at all).
- groovecoder 9y ago
  Sounds kinda like https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1288858 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1288858 ? Or maybe a new bug in the [META] Contextual Identity / Containers Bugs ? (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=1191418&hide_resolved=1 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=11914...)
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- Manishearth 9y ago
  I mean, this is distinct from Firefox Profiles, which work pretty much exactly like Chrome profiles and sync the same way.
  - mey 9y ago
    Learned something new, thanks. This doesn't look terribly user friendly https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-.. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-.... Edit: And in testing I can't have multiple profiles open at the same time.
    - poiru 9y ago
      You can also use about:profiles, which is a little nicer than the profile manager.
ff_ 9y ago
I LOVE this feature, but it has only one problem: when I'm in a container and I press Ctrl+T (new tab), the new tab opens in the default container. This doesn't make sense, I want it to stay in the same container. This was also discussed in the issue tracker, in a now closed issue, in which the intuitive behaviour (staying in the same container) was proposed, but got sidetracked and in the end implemented something totally different. So if anyone from Firefox is listening here: please PLEASE consider implementing Ctrl+T in the same container :)
- dingdingdang 9y ago
  This point is super important usability wise - gets upvote from me too.
- sametmax 9y ago
  Same if you do ctrl + enter in the url or a containerized tab. And you still have no way to have bookmarks that open in a specific container. (you can however flag a URL to always open in a container since recently). But it's just because the feature is very new. They do listen to the community, and will fix it on the long run. At the very beginning containers where unusable, because even links you clicked would not open in the same container :) The community reported it and it was fixed. So don't worry, it takes time, but Mozilla will do the right thing. They most often do, that's the beauty of it and why I kept using Firefox to support them, even when it was clearly less practical than chrome.
  - jimktrains2 9y ago
    > you can however flag a URL to always open in a container since recently That's almost exactly the opposite usecase I have for using accounts in Chrome.
- dannysu 9y ago
  Yes, I wish it worked this way! Even if with another shortcut that's ok too. GitHub issue: https://github.com/mozilla/testpilot-containers/issues/462 https://github.com/mozilla/testpilot-containers/issues/462
- 9y ago
josefresco 9y ago
I implement "containers" simply by using different browsers (one for each screen). Chrome runs my (Google) email, calendar, drive. And then I use Firefox for my client work, where I log in/out of various client identities. I have Firefox set to "nuke" all session data on close - an absolute must-have feature for testing caching issues and making sure I don't end up with "hidden" active sessions around the web.
1024core 9y ago
> and online trackers can’t easily connect the browsing. For what definition of "easily" ?
emerongi 9y ago
This has been extremely useful for the past month or so that I've been using it. I separate work accounts and personal accounts and that has tremendously simplified using the browser. For Youtube, I can use a different Google account without logging out of my main one. I call it my "Entertainment" container - maybe it will also make it harder for agencies to connect my leisure activities to other activities. I even have a "Testing" container when I'm testing a webapp and need to log in with 2 different users in the same window. Very convenient.
- sleavey 9y ago
  This is exactly how I would like to use this feature, but from what I read, Firefox Sync only supports one of the accounts. Does that affect containers? I'd like to sync all of my bookmarks, history etc. from both work and personal containers.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    I think you'd have to use two old-style profiles (separate windows) and then containers in each.
  - 482794793792894 9y ago
    Bookmarks and browsing history are not separated by Container Tabs. So, it will sync both personal and work bookmarks, just like it would without Container Tabs. The idea being that you look towards the internet like several users, but on your end it still behaves like a single user. If you do want bookmarks and browsing history separated, then yeah, as the other guy said you'll want to use classic profiles. Easiest way is to type "about:profiles" into the URL-bar and then the rest should be self-explanatory. Another (scriptable) way is explained here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-... And then you'd create a second Firefox Account and give each profile a different Firefox Account to sync to.
amelius 9y ago
Meanwhile, the websites I visit are tracking me across containers :(
doe88 9y ago
Just a word of caution, anecdotely I installed the Container extension/feature 2 weeks ago when this was discuted on HN, I opened some tabs in different contexts, copied important links I wanted to keep, then decided to hide them, then finally yesterday I wanted to read one of these links, I go look in the menu... Pouf gone, all my links gone... Least to say I was happy.. Therefore not only I have uninstalled this feature but also Test Pilot altogether. I decided from now on to keep things simple because it seems this is only what really works. Maybe I'm rambling a bit, but the sad truth is I don't have much trust in Firefox anymore, I use it because it is to me the least worst browser, not because I really enjoy using it.
newscracker 9y ago
I've used this from the days of it [1] being in Test Pilot (an add-on for experimental features) [2] and really loved the idea. Usually I'd use a couple of different browsers or shuttle between normal and private browsing/incognito modes for using multiple logins on services (from a privacy standpoint, I don't like linking accounts together on any service, like for example how Google allows users to do). I did provide feedback to the developers on the following: 1. Opening new tabs should have better intelligence about which container a user wants to go with. 2. Improving the look of the tab bar for better tab visibility and clarity on which tab was the current one. 3. Detailed and clear documentation on how containers work across normal windows and private windows, because I certainly wouldn't want to use something believing that it's providing me isolation while it does not in certain scenarios. In my limited knowledge, the behavior of different browsers, in keeping cookies/storage isolated, in private/inprivate/incognito mode varies when it comes to multiple windows, multiple tabs and closing windows/tabs. That is already not clear enough (to me) that I don't open more than one private/inprivate/incognito window at the same time. I would love for this to get into Firefox main instead of being an extension! [1]: https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/containers https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/containers [2]: https://testpilot.firefox.com/ https://testpilot.firefox.com/
kodablah 9y ago
I am building my own Chromium-based browser with a similar concept called "bubbles" [0][1]. Not doing a show-hn on it until next week because I need to build another release but feel free to try it out (I recommend building over using the one in the releases area as a lot of bugs have been fixed in master). Oh and for the commenter wanting Ctrl+T in the same container, a Ctrl+Shift+T in Doogie does open a child page in the same bubble. 0 - https://github.com/cretz/doogie https://github.com/cretz/doogie 1 - https://cretz.github.io/doogie/guide/bubble https://cretz.github.io/doogie/guide/bubble
- jimpick 9y ago
  Nice!
- akerro 9y ago
  Instead putting your effort into a single person project you could do it for Brave browser or ungoogled-chromium, it would be more useful and you would get more users.
  - mmphosis 9y ago
    https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://www.brave.com/ https://www.brave.com/
  - kodablah 9y ago
    I have fundamental disagreements with those projects (primarily the UI). Adoption is not an explicit goal.
ComodoHacker 9y ago
I doubt this will help much with privacy. People's laziness plus cognitive effort needed to track what container you are in plus various tricks from advertisers and publishers will keep vast majority of users perfectly trackable. Chrome's approach at least helps to keep multiple profiles visually separate.
- zimbatm 9y ago
  Yes it shouldn't be used for privacy-sensitive identities. Right now opening a new link in a new tab will use the default profile, this makes it super easy to link profiles. Even if that was fixed, all the tabs have pretty much the same browser settings. The main use-case is when you have home/work split with multiple accounts.
35673567 9y ago
Love that they have decided to add this feature officially. I was using using sandboxed tabs -> Priv8 for years so that I dont have to be logged in to facebook and old emails globally. The one thing I miss over the old plugins is the ability to set home pages per profile, which I know doesnt really fit in with the new tab ethos of default Firefox, but I would love a plugin to be able to add the functionality back.
ams6110 9y ago
Firefox has supported multiple profiles for a long time. How is this better?
- groovecoder 9y ago
  This is a lighter-weight approach. It's per-tab so it doesn't require a whole other Firefox process to run.
- 482794793792894 9y ago
  It's not better, it's different. They cover different use-cases. Container Tabs function like a single-user experience that only looks towards the internet like multiple users, so things like browsing history, bookmarks and add-ons are not separated by it.
gangstead 9y ago
I've been wanting something like this for Android / ios. I've had the problem that many restaurant rewards program have gone from "10 punches on this card and your next sandwich is free" to "type in your phone number / scan this card" on each visit and have now become "install our app" to get that free sandwich. That's more than I'm willing to give up for a cheap meal once every few months.
- akjfhiwkjjjfkdk 9y ago
  Good though. You've drawn the line, and kept with it. My privacy is worth more than a sandwich every few months.
- foobar20198 9y ago
  My equivalent is to use incognito/private browsing (depending on browser of choice). However, once again, browsers are opinionated, and don't offer to save passwords in private/incognito mode (with no overrides). Which means I just avoid the whole experience when possible. Similarly, things like Focus let you access a throwaway experience even more easily. Still no password saving though.
DoubleMalt 9y ago
That might bring make me bring back part of my browsing to Firefox. The identities functionality was what made me use Chrome almost exclusively the last two years.
- Manishearth 9y ago
  Chrome doesn't have this. Chrome has profiles, which Firefox has had for years.
  - foobar20198 9y ago
    Switching between profiles in Firefox is the most painful experience ever. Running multiple Firefox profiles simultaneously requires using a terminal command. Switching between profiles in Chrome involves clicking on an easy to find button, and lets you easily run multiple profiles in parallel. No terminal involved, accessible to anyone. To be fair, running multiple chrome profiles in parallel kills my (somewhat old) machine (mostly by virtue of having too many tabs in each profile), so Firefox does win there.
    - poiru 9y ago
      Check out about:profiles! While not nearly as nice as the Chrome UI, it is definitely more approachable than using a terminal.
jqs79 9y ago
How does this compare with using multiple profiles and the -no-remote flag? Does this manage only cookies, or does it also separate local storage (HTML5 session/local/global/web sql database), webcache, window.name caching (if the same tab can use multiple profiles), web history, flash cookies, for those who still have flash installed, etc. People might get a false sense of security if all of these methods of saving data in the browser are not also separated along with cookies.
- groovecoder 9y ago
  Check out https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Project/Containers#What_is_.28and_isn.27t.29_separated_between_Containers https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Projec... for the details of what is - and isn't - separated between Containers.
  - jqs79 9y ago
    Thanks. So it appears that most of it is separated, with the exception of web history and search and form data (which can be identifying). This was also interesting: "Users can log into multiple accounts on the same site, even when the site does not natively support concurrent sessions. ... Current solutions: Users open multiple browsers (this takes users away from Firefox). A user opens one account in Private Browsing mode (this has a limit of 2 accounts, and forces one to be ephemeral)." There is no mention here of the -no-remote flag which has been available for many years.
    - 482794793792894 9y ago
      Well, the vast majority of users have no idea of the -no-remote or -new-instance flags, let alone of Firefox profiles.
- 482794793792894 9y ago
  Generally speaking, Container Tabs try to make you look towards the internet like several users while on your end it behaves like a single-user experience. So, things like history, bookmarks and add-ons are not separated by Container Tabs. And the technology behind this was developed by the Tor Browser devs and then uplifted into Firefox and reused for this, so this is a proper security/privacy feature, not something that only works on the surface.
lucaspottersky 9y ago
this is _AWESOME_!!! maybe the best feature since HTML5 has gone mainstream! i'm so tired of using Icognito Window for that!
lasermike026 9y ago
Awesome! I wish the UI was a little tighter.
feanaro 9y ago
I wonder if there is any reason each tab isn't spawned in its own container. It seems the natural thing to do once you have implemented this, since it maximizes privacy. Unless the resource usage is the limiting factor, I don't see a downside. Am I missing something?
- genghizkhan 9y ago
  You could open five tabs of Facebook, and you'd probably want each one to share its container with the four others unless you specifically want it not to.
  - feanaro 9y ago
    True. It still seems like an unfortunate miss of opportunity since this is essentially an UI problem. It would be great if there was an option to switch the default the other way around: all tabs are opened in their own containers unless you open a tab by "cloning" from an existing tab (for instance, by right-clicking).
- groovecoder 9y ago
  That's what Containers on the Go does: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/containers-on-the-go/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/containers-on... It wasn't our core use-case, but there's a Web Extension API for others to build on!
  - feanaro 9y ago
    Very interesting. I'm thrilled that there's a Web Extension API, this sounds like a killer feature. Now if only Pentadactyl/Vimperator could be reproduced on top of Web Extensions without loss of functionality... ;-)
- 482794793792894 9y ago
  It breaks some webpages to do that and Mozilla unfortunately can't always just put user privacy above all else, because then webpage owners have little incentive to test their webpage in Firefox, as they'll make less money if they can't invade user privacy so much anymore. Tor Browser has essentially what you described, so it's not the case that resource usage would be problematic.
stevenhubertron 9y ago
I would swap to Firefox in a second if I could live with their font renderings. It's just so different than what I am used to in Chrome/Safari/Opera and for some reason its really hard for me to read.
- MattSteelblade 9y ago
  What OS?
  - yoasif_ 9y ago
    Must be macOS. It looks fine for me in macOS, FWIW.
- 482794793792894 9y ago
  Chrome/Safari/Opera all use the WebKit/Blink font renderer, so yeah, those will look similar. Firefox relies on your OS' font renderer, so maybe try to tweak the settings there.
provemewrong 9y ago
Another fan of containers. I switched to Chromium/Safari a long time ago, but installed Nightly 57 the other day out of curiosity, and containers is definitely the best feature in it. Only thing I would love even more would be a private/incognito container (or basically private tabs alongside regular tabs without the need for opening a private new window).
esaym 9y ago
Is the "initial" version really "4.0.1"?
- urda 9y ago
  Why are you so concerned with a version number? It is just a number.
Tajnymag 9y ago
Do these separate history as well?
- nachtigall 9y ago
  No, but please upvote if you also want this feature ;) https://github.com/mozilla/testpilot-containers/issues/47 https://github.com/mozilla/testpilot-containers/issues/47
pbreit 9y ago
This is the one feature that keeps me from using Safari.
witten 9y ago
Dumb question: Does the implementation have anything to do with containers? E.g., Docker? Or is this just overloading an existing industry term?
- mrmekon 9y ago
  Docker didn't invent the term 'container' for... well, _containing_ an environment. It's not really overloaded here. 'Container' means a contained environment that can see itself, and cannot see other contained environments on the same machine/network. It has the same basic meaning for both Docker and Firefox. Docker was released in 2013, so if you search for "software container" or "software virtual container", or "chroot container" on Google filtered to before 01-01-2012, you will find plenty of examples of it from the past. LXC - Linux Containers – was released in 2008... Virtuozzo Containers since at least 2000. Here's something called Aurora for containerizing CORBA services in 1998: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/BFb0054506?no-access=true https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/BFb0054506?no-acce...
  - witten 9y ago
    Sure, I'm familiar with the history. It's just that, all prior art aside, the term "container" at this point in time has a pretty particular connotation.
dexzod 9y ago
The article says: "online trackers can’t easily connect the browsing", which seems to imply that they can still connect the browsing. Why can't they be completely prevented from tracking other browsing. The second question I have is how is this different from Firefox profiles?
- stefano 9y ago
  They can still track you through your IP address, or by a combination of many browser/computer/OS properties available through JS, for example window size, browser agent, OS, fonts installed, etc. All these things don't identify you by themselves, but with enough of them you can build a fingerprint which is (almost) unique.
- 482794793792894 9y ago
  Firefox Profiles function like a multi-user experience whereas Container Tabs function like a single-user experience that only looks like multiple users towards the internet. So, for example browsing history, bookmarks and add-ons are not separated by Container Tabs. Also, you can (obviously) use them in tabs, not just in separate windows like profiles.
gaius_baltar 9y ago
This is great! I have been emulating this feature for years with multiple profiles, but let's get things right: it takes some work and it is hard to teach non-techie folks how to do the same. Time to test the thing.
tjoff 9y ago
I really like this, but why for everything that is holy does it not work in Private Windows? I use Private mode a lot and it doesn't really make sense to group everything together just because it is "Private".
Jeaye 9y ago
I was in the test pilot for this and I had one singular gripe which I don't think has been addressed or brought up anywhere else I've seen: I want to be able to move a tab from one container to another. It's so easy to open a tab in the default container, or the wrong container, and being able to move that tab, along with all the data it has spawned (like cookies) would make this a killer feature for me. The only other thing, which admittedly makes my one singular gripe less singular, is that I didn't see any separation in the history, as far as what was in a given container. In an ideal world, each container would have its own "Show all history" data.
- groovecoder 9y ago
  https://addons.mozilla.org/nn-no/firefox/addon/context-plus/ https://addons.mozilla.org/nn-no/firefox/addon/context-plus/ does the first part.
  - Jeaye 9y ago
    Thank you! This is absolutely essential for a good container experience.
SubiculumCode 9y ago
I've been using containers in test pilot for about a month and I love it. Google is separated from my news reading, is separated from my banking, is separated from my shopping, is separated from my leisure activity, is separated from my work activity. Once you set it up to aways open a site within a designated container it is all smooth. However, I wonder. What is the technical reason for not making it default to 1 container by site? Sure that would mean hundreds of containers...but does that pose performance problems?
- Sylos 9y ago
  > However, I wonder. What is the technical reason for not making it default to 1 container by site? Sure that would mean hundreds of containers...but does that pose performance problems? It would break some webpages. Also, yes, the vast majority of broken things will be tracking, but as a browser vendor you sort of need to not piss off webpage owners (which often benefit from tracking, directly or indirectly), as otherwise they'll stop testing their webpage against your browser. Also, as far as I understand things, Tor Browser actually has what essentially is a separate Container Tab per domain. It's described somewhat more precisely here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Project/Containers#An_extended_origin https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Projec...
nvr219 9y ago
FINAAAAAAALLLY
mderazon 9y ago
I like this but I like chrome multi profile model better. I like that extensions are separate for each profile. For example, I have two separate LastPass accounts. One for work and a personal one. There is no way for me to keep them separate like this.
- Rusky 9y ago
  Firefox already has that sort of profiles, though they are somewhat less visible than the equivalent Chrome feature.
  - mderazon 9y ago
    Do you know how ? Through which extension?
    - Rusky 9y ago
      No extension at all- it's built in. Try visiting about:profile or launching Firefox with the -p flag.
Proven 9y ago
Nobody will know your s3krets Except FireFox who will sell them aggregated for a non-profit...
MadWombat 9y ago
But is it going to work once FF drops add-on support?
- yoasif_ 9y ago
  Firefox isn't dropping add-on support, they are deprecating their old add-on model. But yes, this continues to work after Firefox 57.
mattacular 9y ago
Can someone give a quick summary of how this differs from Google Chrome "People" accounts? On the surface they seem very similar. Thanks!
thinbeige 9y ago
This is my most wanted feature for a browser. Anyone knows if every instance has not just a different cookies set but also different canvas fingerprints?
- steveklabnik 9y ago
  I think you want to read this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15258485 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15258485
- groovecoder 9y ago
  No. Canvas-fingerprinting is mitigated in other protections; they are not per-Container. :/
drvortex 9y ago
So this basically replicates the functionality provided by https://sessionbox.io/ https://sessionbox.io/ Is multi-process here already?
- yoasif_ 9y ago
  > Is multi-process here already? Yes.
the_common_man 9y ago
Press and hold in the '+' button shows the container menu. Took we a while to figure this out.
rb666 9y ago
Great feature! I switched to FF Nightly some months ago, and I can confirm the performance is great. Sadly I had to switch back to Chrome, the quality of extensions in Chrome is just much higher. Now, I only just learned recently that in theory you can use Chrome extensions in Firefox, does this actually work well? Or just so-so.
- 482794793792894 9y ago
  So, this extension quality problem isn't new. Firefox's current extension API is really powerful, but really complicated and it's not really an API, it's more-so just a way to fuck around with Firefox's source code, so if Mozilla changes things then generally extensions break and need to be updated. Because of that Mozilla has wanted to move to a different extension API for a long time, they just couldn't really afford to, because it would require breaking all extensions for good. Now they are at the point where they do feel like breaking all extensions weighs up with the benefits. Another big factor here is the new multiprocess-architecture, which is the foundation for most of those performance improvements that you've seen, and also requires breaking all extensions. (Currently those old extensions can still be used, but Firefox will then drop back to singleprocess - another quality problem that you likely encountered.) So, now they needed that new extension API. And instead of writing and testing a completely new API, Mozilla decided to base it off of Chrome's extension API. Some smaller Chrome-specific APIs were left out / adjusted, but short of that and potential bugs in the implementation, Firefox is going to be compatible with Chrome extensions. (They are also adding new APIs that Chrome does not support, because they want to offer more extensibility, so it's essentially a superset of Chrome's extension API.) For most extension developers, the only porting work is going to be to test it, work around bugs if they run into some and then upload it to addons.mozilla.org. The more or less 1.0 release of that implementation is going to be with Firefox 57 on November 14th, which is also when the old extension API is going to be disabled. But most of this new extension API (called "WebExtensions") is already in Firefox as of today, there's just still some bugs left to be squished. So, that's why and how you can run Chrome extensions in Firefox. It's up to the individual extension developers to port their extension. Well, that's the normal path, which is not going to be so-so. As I said, the porting work is often minimal. So minimal that it can almost be automated. That's why this extension can exist: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/chrome-store-foxified/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/chrome-store-... Assuming there's no bugs, then the only part which can't be automated is signing the extension. Haven't done it myself yet, but from what I hear, it's a matter of creating/having a Firefox Account, uploading the extension-file and then waiting for a few days or so. So, to summarize: Firefox now supports Chrome extensions with minimal porting work necessary, meaning that lots of those will get ported over. You can try to port things on your own and if there's no bugs then it shouldn't be hard (and it's not hard to find out if there are bugs). And lots of old, unmaintained and problematic extensions will get thrown out with Firefox 57, making it much easier to find the qualitatively better ones.
piyush_soni 9y ago
Not sure. I've been using separate "Work" and "Personal" profiles at my workplace, and can beautifully have two Firefox sync accounts syncing their own stuff. This limitation of the new Container extension prevents me from using it as I'd never want my personal and work set of extensions, bookmarks, and history to mingle with each other. Big oversight.
- 482794793792894 9y ago
  Well, that's just the two different use-cases. Container Tabs are not trying to replace profiles.
matt_f 9y ago
Can anyone from Mozilla here explain what this is written in, or how it works? "Containers" makes me immediately think of Docker-like containerized applications, which I suspect is not actually the case here.
- groovecoder 9y ago
  It's a Web Extension add-on, so it's written in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. There should be a post on hacks.mozila.org soon.
timthelion 9y ago
I love this! I tried to do this by running multiple instances of firefox in separate Docker containers using software I wrote for the task (see subuser.org), and while it works, for more than a few different accounts it gets slow to switch between them because my system won't keep all of the instances of firefox in memory.
winterlight 9y ago
I tried this feature when it was available only in pilot mode. It was very nice and fitted quite well my uses. But the UX back then could use some improvements. For example, opening a new tab in a specific container took way too many clicks. And you couldn't just to CTR+T because it would always open the tab in the default container, rather than that of the active tab.
Entangled 9y ago
I've been doing multiple containers for multiple accounts opening five different browsers (SF, FX, CR, OP, TR). Now I only need Safari for my regular browsing, Firefox for multiple accounts and Opera for free VPN.
- TheRealPomax 9y ago
  Free, but you get exactly what you pay for: a rather bad VPN bordering on "this is not a VPN at all". Of course, you should not believe a random commenter on HN for that, so hit up https://thatoneprivacysite.net/vpn-comparison-chart/ https://thatoneprivacysite.net/vpn-comparison-chart/ and use that as a starting point to verify for yourself whether or not Opera's VPN is any good. If you want security rather than security veneer, use a real VPN instead, with browsers set to either use or ignore the system proxy, depending on what you want out of each browser.
hobarrera 9y ago
I've been using the tests version of this for some time now. It's great. Keeping work/personal sessions from mixing is really useful (eg: I want my work google account whenever I visit gmail, but my personal one for youtube). You can also set certain domains to open on certain containers by default. It's available here for now, but I really hope this ends up making it into firefox itself: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/multi-account...
Multiuser 9y ago
I have just downloaded Firefox Multi-Account Containers but I can't find information on how to use it.I am not an expert.
greggarious 9y ago
One issue I see is that it seems to be based on domains. (Ex: if I want a container for my streaming apps, there's no way to segregate Amazon Video from the rest of the "shopping" app) Then again I may be getting too fine grained with my personas but segregating Reddit, HN et al away from my Google account and away from my streaming accounts seems to kick tracking in the ass.

850 points by nachtigall 9y ago

This is incredibly useful. It's basically like Chrome's 'profiles', except per-tab rather than per-window. So I can now have my personal gmail, my work gmail, and the 3rd gmail account for a client set next to each other, and colour coded. This, along with the speed improvements (both the UI and content processes) in Firefox 55 have made it my default browser for the first time since Chrome was released.

robin_reala 9y ago
Look forwards to 57 then because that’s a good deal faster than 55.
sametmax 9y ago
Yes, best feature ever. I've been giving it a try for some time now since it came out in test pilot and it's beautiful. Open your google/twitter/whatever accounts in separate profiles, et you get the benefits of being "always logged in" with no tracking on your main session. Having multiple github accounts next to each others is a bliss and prevent so many stupid mistakes I used to make, like commenting with the wrong identity on a PR. Combined with the tab group extension, it makes currently Firefox the most productive browser experience I had in years.
- philsnow 9y ago
  > you get the benefits of being "always logged in" with no tracking on your main session _well_ what about web sites that use information about your browser that isn't stored in cookies? Check out https://panopticlick.eff.org/ https://panopticlick.eff.org/ Unless Firefox has a story to prevent this kind of tracking, don't rely on multiple profiles for any important separation you're trying to keep.
  - diafygi 9y ago
    What should you rely on?
    - philsnow 9y ago
      good question, I don't personally have such needs so I haven't investigated it.
    - nix0n 9y ago
      EFF's Privacy Badger extension [0] should help a little, but if you really need to avoid tracking you'll need something more like Tor. [0]https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://www.eff.org/privacybadger
      - arianvanp 9y ago
        Torbrowser actually warns to not resize your browser as the resize allows people to fingerprint you
  - ChrisSD 9y ago
    They do have tracking protection (basically a content blocker) but by default it's only enabled in private mode.
  - genghizkhan 9y ago
    If you enable 'privacy.resistFingerprinting' in your about:config, you get substantially harder to track. The caveat is that there's a small (albeit noticeable) performance delta.
    - viseztrance 9y ago
      That attribute is part of ongoing work and it's disabled for a reason. Currently it doesn't protect you against canvas or webgl fingerprinting.
      - genghizkhan 9y ago
verytrivial 9y ago
Yes! I've said this since day zero of the Chrome profile implementation we were all forced^H^H^Hstrongly encouraged to evaluate. This does not work on a Social web, at least not for most people. Humans have one technical identity, but they have multiple personas, and they adapt them per context. We have done so for thousands of years and to force every interactive to be viewed in the context of every other robs people of normal expectations of freedom.
dingaling 9y ago
However it doesn't appear to containerize extensions / add-ons, so it's probably still prudent to use a separate clean profile for banking to avoid the risk of malicious data-slurping add-ons. Despite their claims for it: "Maybe you want to keep your bank’s website farther away from your Pinterest board"
- oAlbe 9y ago
  Would you trust using a potential "data-slurping" add-on at all? I honestly wouldn't, neither for my bank info, nor for my search queries. Just be mindful of what add-ons you install.
  - grok2 9y ago
    I think the OP is sorta saying the same thing -- they perhaps don't want their banking container to see add-ons (except the container add-on :-)). It's perhaps okay to be relaxed about some add-ons in some environments, but not in all environments.
    - jlgaddis 9y ago
      Isn't this what profiles were designed for?
      - efreak 9y ago
        I always thought profiles we're designed for multiple users on one login; they've been around for ages, and I assumed it was because windows 98 wasn't good with multiple profiles/users.
- mderazon 9y ago
  This is the reason it's not useful for me I have separate LastPass accounts on each chrome profile (one for work and for personal use) and there's no way to keep them separate like this
  - 9y ago
rdiddly 9y ago
Yes Firefox seems to be making big strides, and I find myself using it more often these days. It's a ripe environment for them right now too, with many more of the general public growing wary of Google (kind of the new Microsoft, in Mozilla/Netscape terms). If I didn't have to test stuff in Chrome, I'd probably be ready (as of FF55) to uninstall it altogether. Even the Firefox dev tools are better than Chrome in my opinion.
- DavideNL 9y ago
  I agree, although the fact that pinch-to-zoom still sucks big time in Firefox (in comparison to Safari and Chrome/Chromium) annoys me so much, in the end i always keep avoiding Firefox: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688990 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688990 It sooo much easier when reading articles to be able to zoom in to the 'article text only' in Safari/Chromium.
Sylos 9y ago
For the record, Firefox does also have profiles like Chrome has them: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-... Alternatively type "about:profiles" into the URL-bar, which you can also bookmark.
- efreak 9y ago
  Unlike chrome, you can't have multiple Firefox profiles running simultaneously unless you're using two separate installs. Even then, one has to be nightly/developer/etc, or it refused to start.
  - RobMurray 9y ago
    I use multiple firefox profiles at the same time and it works fine. try firefox -no-remote -p
  - 482794793792894 9y ago
    You can. As the other commenter wrote `firefox -no-remote -P` works. You can also add the name of a profile after the "-P" to launch directly into that profile. If you're not on Windows, you can also instead use `firefox -new-instance -P`, which is better, because -no-remote cuts off communication from other applications to that Firefox instance, meaning that you can't open links from those other applications inside a Firefox instance that's been started with -no-remote. The aforementioned "about:profiles" also has a button "Launch profile in new browser", which is much easier than the above methods, but those are useful, if you for example want desktop shortcut for your individual profiles.
velobro 9y ago
This is huge! I work for an IT consulting firm and we have accounts for each client which I store in their unique chrome profiles. Keeps things organized but switching between windows can get tedious at times so having them per-tab is making me switch back to Firefox

wakkaflokka 9y ago

I'm on the nightly and it says the extension is not compatible with my version of Firefox. Is this only for <56?

jacobmischka 9y ago
Nightly has this built in actually, though the icon looks a little different. Enable it in about:preferences#general in the Tabs section. The icon looks like a file cabinet.
- chrismorgan 9y ago
  The built-in functionality doesn’t have nice things like “always open this site in such-and-such a container”.
  - evilpie 9y ago
    You can still install the github version in addition to that, which should give you that feature again! https://github.com/mozilla/testpilot-containers#readme https://github.com/mozilla/testpilot-containers#readme
    - chrismorgan 9y ago
      Indeed: that’s how I use it. (I use this to keep work and personal stuff separate because of a couple of services that don’t support multiple simultaneous logins.)

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

anovikov 9y ago

Will be cool for many Upwork account brokers

ihateneckbeards 9y ago

That's great, I hate when Youtube recommends me all kinds of videos about turtles just because I stumbled over a video of turtle 6 months ago

0xFFC 9y ago
That is my whole problem with this recent machine learning approach has been taken off in last decade. I don't have anything against AI. But there is got to be a way to sign this off. Sadly google thend to shove it in people throats.
- notheguyouthink 9y ago
  Agreed, and it's one of the reasons I've switched off of everything google I can. Youtube and Google Voice are the only things left. Oh and my Pixel XL phone, but I'll be switching to the iPhone X in Jan / Fed (whenever it goes carrier free). I hate not knowing what consequences my actions are going to have.
mjard 9y ago
I've found it useful to purge my Youtube history every once in a while. If I click on random Youtube links on irc, they always get opened in a private/incognito session. I'm annoyed this is something that I think about.
- efreak 9y ago
  It's not terribly useful for people who open stuff from within the browser, but for the past couple of years I've actually had my default browser in Windows set to incognito/private mode of whatever browser I'm using. This way I don't have to think about it, and I also don't have to deal with things like Gmail deciding that I've already seen some emails because my inbox loaded in a background tab.
  - breakingcups 9y ago
    Heh, a bit like Firefox Focus on Android. That's a great idea.

akerro 9y ago

How did they know I have multiple personalities? Are they watching me?

fukusa 9y ago
They are watching all of you.
jccalhoun 9y ago
one of you told on you

nothrabannosir 9y ago

I've been using this for over a month now, and while I'm convinced it's the right idea, the implementation leaves much to be desired. Currently, it costs more effort than it's worth. [EDIT: comments show this does exist! great] Missing: easy way to open a new tab in a specific profile. ctrl-T always opens in Default profile, not the one you're on. So have to go File menu -> New tab -> select profile. And that menu changes items around slightly, so no muscle memory. I end up going to a tab already open, middle clicking a random link, ctrl-L, and using that as a fresh tab. I see on their little drawings they show some cool drop down under the + button at the right of the tab row, but I can't find any such functionality. [EDIT: Comments show exists. Good enough!] Missing: a way to fix certain hosts to certain profiles. E.g. {XXX.myclient.com -> always open in "Client X" tab}. E.g. with links from GitHub (which is client independent) into custom CIs (jenkins etc). You forget, "why isn't this logged in? oh, profiles", go back, right click the link, open in new container -> select container. Ugh. Missing: a way to disallow any non-whitelisted hosts from a tab. E.g. having a gmail tab is useless, because every link you click will open in that profile (and you won't notice because hey, it works) and now your gmail credentials and cookies are available there. Again defeats the purpose. Especially for a "Banking" tab, for example. Missing: clear warning that this doesn't do anything meaningful against tracking. It's a complete waste of time to separate your Facebook into a separate profile if you don't want to be tracked across other domains. Fingerprinting goes well beyond cookies. They don't need your account cookie to link your visits. Missing: segmentation of plugins!! Different NoScript or µblock settings per profile? yes please! Or even just native Firefox settings (3rd party cookies, clearing policy, etc) per website per profile would be lovely. All in all: I'm stubborn so I'll keep using it, but I'll be honest: there's quite a low ROI on them, as they are. Good start, hope they improve. EDIT: Another missing: clear cookies only from a certain profile. E.g. discover I've accidentally been browsing youtube in work profile (or whatever), I want to delete all youtube cookies _but only from that profile_. Can't do it. I encounter this problem often with GMail, where I want to clear a friend's login but not log out all my sessions from different containers. (PS: Sorry for using "profile" and "container" interchangeably---it was a bit stream of consciousness. I mean "container" for both words).

ChrisSD 9y ago
> Missing: easy way to open a new tab in a specific profile Long click the new tab button then select the profile. Or just click the button on the toolbar and select the profile. > Missing: a way to fix certain hosts to certain profiles. When you click the toolbar button, you get the option to always open in the current container.

wslh 9y ago

For historical reasons I cannot avoid to mention that I achieved this with my Cookiepie extension 11 years ago (a billon Internet years ago indeed): https://youtu.be/2Pfg-kJ4nAw https://youtu.be/2Pfg-kJ4nAw Cookiepie was written only in JavaScript and was very hackish because Firefox APIs didn't have a way to correlate network requests with the tab in the UI, so I traversed network and UI objects recursively to find unknown relationships between them. It was very difficult to support because even minor Firefox releases broke it. I even posted my Cookiepie extension for the first Firefox extension contest [1] and there was no prize or mention for it. [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2006/03/mozilla-announces-winners-of-extend-firefox-competition/ https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2006/03/mozilla-announces-win...

groovecoder 9y ago
As a Firefox engineer, then, let me say props for being ahead of your time! (And waaaaay ahead of mine - I'm new to PrivSec engineering at Firefox) I'm not sure if Cookiepie directly inspired the engineers who built originAttributes and Containers features here, but after working with this Firefox team I can definitely say that the core Containers tech is not hackish at all - great engineers here. Anyway, thanks for contributing!
- fabrice_d 9y ago
  originAttributes and Containers can be traced back to the appId cookie/storage separation implemented for b2g (aka FirefoxOS) apps. I remember that baku wrote an early Fx add-on abusing appIds and docShells to provide a container-like functionality.
  - bholley 9y ago
    In more detail: For the original FirefoxOS security model, sicking and jlebar rototilled all the security checks in the codebase to switch from comparing origins to comparing (origin, appId, isInMozBrowser) tuples. Later on, for the eventually-abandoned FirefoxOS New Security Model (NSec), we needed to pass around a signed package id instead. So the options on the table were to rototill the codebase again, or to do something out of band with the cookie service (sicking's proposal). When I found out about this I wasn't particularly happy with either option, and used my sec module ownership to insert myself into the discussion, and push for a more general approach (i.e. OriginAttributes). Sicking was initially kind of peeved about this, because they were on a deadline, but eventually came around. So we did one more pass of the rototiller to switch everything from appId+mozBrowser to the general and extensible mechanism. Years later, FirefoxOS is no more, but OriginAttributes are still used to implement Private Browsing, Containers, and First-Party Isolation. Here's to general/reusable solutions!

raimue 9y ago

I am a long-time user of the deprecated Multifox extension and I have switched to the Firefox containers ever since they have been introduced to the stable releases about a year ago. This feature is actually builtin in Firefox, you only need to change some config settings to enable the UI (probably this is also all what the linked extension does?). As Multifox was one of the old XUL/XPCOM extensions, I am glad that this functionality was integrated natively before Firefox 57 will disable all extensions that are not WebExtensions. It is a great way to login to multiple accounts on various sites such as Twitter, without going through the hassle of a full logout/login cycle. You can use the accounts side-by-side in different tabs, which will be color coded to indicate which container they belong to. More details can be found on the Mozilla wiki: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Project/Containers https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Projec...

groovecoder 9y ago
The add-on flips the config setting, but also: 1. Implements the browserAction pop-up UI for managing containers & tabs 2. Adds the ability to assign sites to always open in a certain container
- xahrepap 9y ago
  how do you do #2? I can't find it? For example, I want Facebook to always open in my "Facebook" container. EDIT: I guess I just had to ask then my brain figured it out. :) Open the page in the container you want, right click the extension icon and choose "Always open in this container"
  - groovecoder 9y ago
    You can also assign the site to the Container in the browserAction pop-up UI.

wutwutwutwut 9y ago

I just want to be able to open a new tab in a brand new container. Similar to File->New Session in Internet Explorer. If I want to test my web app with say 4 different identities then figuring out which container is "free" becomes cumbersome.

the8472 9y ago
Extensions can spawn new containers, so this should be easy to implement if you want to. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/contextualIdentities https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/AP...
- groovecoder 9y ago
  In fact, "Containers on the Go" seems to do this: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/containers-on-the-go/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/containers-on...

teekert 9y ago

Huh? Did I just add this and got a "Firefox screenshots" icon with it?

sp332 9y ago
That's a built-in Firefox feature. https://screenshots.firefox.com/ https://screenshots.firefox.com/ I thought it was only included in Nightly builds but I guess they pushed it to Beta?
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  I think they pushed it to main? It appeared unsolicited on my toolbar (on Kubuntu) with last update I did -- I would have thought they'd been warded off adding unrequested feature buttons by now. Would it be that hard to have an update page that says "do you want to add $commercialTieInButton"?
  - sp332 9y ago
    There's no commercial tie-in though. It's 100% first-party.
    - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
      It was more a general point, like for the Telefonica button, the Pocket button, etc., this links to a particular image upload tool though doesn't it? Only looked at it long enough to find if I'd got malware.
      - sp332 9y ago
        Yes but it's run and hosted by Firefox. It's even covered by the Firefox privacy notice.
  - 482794793792894 9y ago
    Is that really so much different than just sticking a button there and then if you don't want it, you remove that button? If they make it opt-in like you suggest, then a good number of casual users will not understand, because they can't try it without opting in, and therefore ultimately not opt-in, even though they would probably like this feature. (They've had it in the Test Pilot project like the above and got a very good response to it.)

nasredin 9y ago

Am I in a paralel universe where Firefox updates bring useful features, make the browser look less like Chrome and do not break backwards compatability with thousands of extensions? Integrate Tor and you might suddenly stop being ShittierChrome and stop losing your market share.

groovecoder 9y ago
I like where your head is at ... if not your choice of words. Check out https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Tor_Uplift https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Tor_Uplift

maxerickson 9y ago

Can any browser historian explain why the original models of cookie sharing weren't more like this? I figure it comes down to some combination of lack of consideration and performance concerns, but that is just speculation. I suppose restricted cookie sharing is also a lot more complicated for the user.

notheguyouthink 9y ago

Cool! As an aside, I've been migrating away from Chrome for a while - and I posted here a while back being dismayed by how terrible Firefox was, how slow/etc it was, etc. Many people suggested I switch to nightly. Nightly is .. a night and day experience. I've been fully switched from Chrome now, thanks to Firefox. Note that on OSX I've had no complaints with Safari as my Chrome replacement, so I've stuck with them - but on windows it's all Firefox. Keep up the great work guys, the new stuff is amazing. Hope you can push it to stable branch soon for people. :)

Brakenshire 9y ago
Wow, nightly is really impressive. Some operations like opening videos are crazily fast, almost feels native. One conspicuous absence is that there's no way to save a web app to desktop, I use that a lot with Chromium on Linux.
- sf_rob 9y ago
  You're likely experiencing the major performance improvements that come along with Firefox 57. In a few weeks the general release should feel that fast without some of the trade-offs that come with Nightly. The biggest downside to 57 I'm experiencing is that not all extensions have been updated to the new web extensions framework, so there are some workflows that don't work for me at the moment (LastPass, which is working on a new release, and Stylish, which I'm not sure will update).
  - clouddrover 9y ago
    > and Stylish, which I'm not sure will update Stylish has a Chrome version so I'd guess they'll port that to Firefox for 57+. In the meantime there's Stylus, which is a fork of the Chrome version of Stylish: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/styl-us/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/styl-us/
  - rhn_mk1 9y ago
    Be careful about Stylish - since it was sold, it stirred a lot of the community by dropping the original ideals and including tracking software. The change of hands happened after the last Firefox version update, so it should be safe for the time being. If you follow why the Stylus extension was made (port from Chrome's Stylish), you can find more explanations.

jancsika 9y ago

> [...] so Exhaustive Shopping Researcher Self can steer clear of Humble Bragging Social Self, and Super Professional Work Self can go about the bizness without worrying about being followed by those other two. Let's be crystal clear-- this feature lets Humble Bragging Social Self, Super Professional Work Self et al stay logged in to Gmail/etc. at the same time. End of feature. > Each Container stores cookies separately, so you can log into the same site with different accounts and online trackers can’t easily connect the browsing. Cool! This must be what McGee uses on NCIS to break through those CIA firewalls while avoiding detection. And yes-- I know an NCIS character's name and skills. Luckily, I'm using Firefox Multi-Account Containers so there's no way to shame the real me for it. :)

mey 9y ago

I use Chrome profiles heavily, so I am very happy Firefox is exploring this feature. When doing consulting, I like to keep different client activities isolated to their own profile, so I have less things to juggle if they use the same cloud service (AWS, G Suite, Jira, etc). One limitation I currently see to that workflow (that works better for me in Chrome) is that this appears to all reside under a single Firefox Account which essentially creates master set of data to Sync. I would like to be able to setup Containers to be pegged to different Firefox Accounts (or not at all).

groovecoder 9y ago
Sounds kinda like https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1288858 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1288858 ? Or maybe a new bug in the [META] Contextual Identity / Containers Bugs ? (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=1191418&hide_resolved=1 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=11914...)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
Manishearth 9y ago
I mean, this is distinct from Firefox Profiles, which work pretty much exactly like Chrome profiles and sync the same way.
- mey 9y ago
  Learned something new, thanks. This doesn't look terribly user friendly https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-.. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-.... Edit: And in testing I can't have multiple profiles open at the same time.
  - poiru 9y ago
    You can also use about:profiles, which is a little nicer than the profile manager.

ff_ 9y ago

I LOVE this feature, but it has only one problem: when I'm in a container and I press Ctrl+T (new tab), the new tab opens in the default container. This doesn't make sense, I want it to stay in the same container. This was also discussed in the issue tracker, in a now closed issue, in which the intuitive behaviour (staying in the same container) was proposed, but got sidetracked and in the end implemented something totally different. So if anyone from Firefox is listening here: please PLEASE consider implementing Ctrl+T in the same container :)

dingdingdang 9y ago
This point is super important usability wise - gets upvote from me too.
sametmax 9y ago
Same if you do ctrl + enter in the url or a containerized tab. And you still have no way to have bookmarks that open in a specific container. (you can however flag a URL to always open in a container since recently). But it's just because the feature is very new. They do listen to the community, and will fix it on the long run. At the very beginning containers where unusable, because even links you clicked would not open in the same container :) The community reported it and it was fixed. So don't worry, it takes time, but Mozilla will do the right thing. They most often do, that's the beauty of it and why I kept using Firefox to support them, even when it was clearly less practical than chrome.
- jimktrains2 9y ago
  > you can however flag a URL to always open in a container since recently That's almost exactly the opposite usecase I have for using accounts in Chrome.
dannysu 9y ago
Yes, I wish it worked this way! Even if with another shortcut that's ok too. GitHub issue: https://github.com/mozilla/testpilot-containers/issues/462 https://github.com/mozilla/testpilot-containers/issues/462
9y ago

josefresco 9y ago

I implement "containers" simply by using different browsers (one for each screen). Chrome runs my (Google) email, calendar, drive. And then I use Firefox for my client work, where I log in/out of various client identities. I have Firefox set to "nuke" all session data on close - an absolute must-have feature for testing caching issues and making sure I don't end up with "hidden" active sessions around the web.

1024core 9y ago

> and online trackers can’t easily connect the browsing. For what definition of "easily" ?

emerongi 9y ago

This has been extremely useful for the past month or so that I've been using it. I separate work accounts and personal accounts and that has tremendously simplified using the browser. For Youtube, I can use a different Google account without logging out of my main one. I call it my "Entertainment" container - maybe it will also make it harder for agencies to connect my leisure activities to other activities. I even have a "Testing" container when I'm testing a webapp and need to log in with 2 different users in the same window. Very convenient.

sleavey 9y ago
This is exactly how I would like to use this feature, but from what I read, Firefox Sync only supports one of the accounts. Does that affect containers? I'd like to sync all of my bookmarks, history etc. from both work and personal containers.
- icebraining 9y ago
  I think you'd have to use two old-style profiles (separate windows) and then containers in each.
- 482794793792894 9y ago
  Bookmarks and browsing history are not separated by Container Tabs. So, it will sync both personal and work bookmarks, just like it would without Container Tabs. The idea being that you look towards the internet like several users, but on your end it still behaves like a single user. If you do want bookmarks and browsing history separated, then yeah, as the other guy said you'll want to use classic profiles. Easiest way is to type "about:profiles" into the URL-bar and then the rest should be self-explanatory. Another (scriptable) way is explained here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-... And then you'd create a second Firefox Account and give each profile a different Firefox Account to sync to.

amelius 9y ago

Meanwhile, the websites I visit are tracking me across containers :(

doe88 9y ago

Just a word of caution, anecdotely I installed the Container extension/feature 2 weeks ago when this was discuted on HN, I opened some tabs in different contexts, copied important links I wanted to keep, then decided to hide them, then finally yesterday I wanted to read one of these links, I go look in the menu... Pouf gone, all my links gone... Least to say I was happy.. Therefore not only I have uninstalled this feature but also Test Pilot altogether. I decided from now on to keep things simple because it seems this is only what really works. Maybe I'm rambling a bit, but the sad truth is I don't have much trust in Firefox anymore, I use it because it is to me the least worst browser, not because I really enjoy using it.

newscracker 9y ago

I've used this from the days of it [1] being in Test Pilot (an add-on for experimental features) [2] and really loved the idea. Usually I'd use a couple of different browsers or shuttle between normal and private browsing/incognito modes for using multiple logins on services (from a privacy standpoint, I don't like linking accounts together on any service, like for example how Google allows users to do). I did provide feedback to the developers on the following: 1. Opening new tabs should have better intelligence about which container a user wants to go with. 2. Improving the look of the tab bar for better tab visibility and clarity on which tab was the current one. 3. Detailed and clear documentation on how containers work across normal windows and private windows, because I certainly wouldn't want to use something believing that it's providing me isolation while it does not in certain scenarios. In my limited knowledge, the behavior of different browsers, in keeping cookies/storage isolated, in private/inprivate/incognito mode varies when it comes to multiple windows, multiple tabs and closing windows/tabs. That is already not clear enough (to me) that I don't open more than one private/inprivate/incognito window at the same time. I would love for this to get into Firefox main instead of being an extension! [1]: https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/containers https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/containers [2]: https://testpilot.firefox.com/ https://testpilot.firefox.com/

kodablah 9y ago

I am building my own Chromium-based browser with a similar concept called "bubbles" [0][1]. Not doing a show-hn on it until next week because I need to build another release but feel free to try it out (I recommend building over using the one in the releases area as a lot of bugs have been fixed in master). Oh and for the commenter wanting Ctrl+T in the same container, a Ctrl+Shift+T in Doogie does open a child page in the same bubble. 0 - https://github.com/cretz/doogie https://github.com/cretz/doogie 1 - https://cretz.github.io/doogie/guide/bubble https://cretz.github.io/doogie/guide/bubble

jimpick 9y ago
Nice!
akerro 9y ago
Instead putting your effort into a single person project you could do it for Brave browser or ungoogled-chromium, it would be more useful and you would get more users.
- mmphosis 9y ago
  https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://www.brave.com/ https://www.brave.com/
- kodablah 9y ago
  I have fundamental disagreements with those projects (primarily the UI). Adoption is not an explicit goal.

ComodoHacker 9y ago

I doubt this will help much with privacy. People's laziness plus cognitive effort needed to track what container you are in plus various tricks from advertisers and publishers will keep vast majority of users perfectly trackable. Chrome's approach at least helps to keep multiple profiles visually separate.

zimbatm 9y ago
Yes it shouldn't be used for privacy-sensitive identities. Right now opening a new link in a new tab will use the default profile, this makes it super easy to link profiles. Even if that was fixed, all the tabs have pretty much the same browser settings. The main use-case is when you have home/work split with multiple accounts.

35673567 9y ago

Love that they have decided to add this feature officially. I was using using sandboxed tabs -> Priv8 for years so that I dont have to be logged in to facebook and old emails globally. The one thing I miss over the old plugins is the ability to set home pages per profile, which I know doesnt really fit in with the new tab ethos of default Firefox, but I would love a plugin to be able to add the functionality back.

ams6110 9y ago

Firefox has supported multiple profiles for a long time. How is this better?

groovecoder 9y ago
This is a lighter-weight approach. It's per-tab so it doesn't require a whole other Firefox process to run.
482794793792894 9y ago
It's not better, it's different. They cover different use-cases. Container Tabs function like a single-user experience that only looks towards the internet like multiple users, so things like browsing history, bookmarks and add-ons are not separated by it.

gangstead 9y ago

I've been wanting something like this for Android / ios. I've had the problem that many restaurant rewards program have gone from "10 punches on this card and your next sandwich is free" to "type in your phone number / scan this card" on each visit and have now become "install our app" to get that free sandwich. That's more than I'm willing to give up for a cheap meal once every few months.

akjfhiwkjjjfkdk 9y ago
Good though. You've drawn the line, and kept with it. My privacy is worth more than a sandwich every few months.
foobar20198 9y ago
My equivalent is to use incognito/private browsing (depending on browser of choice). However, once again, browsers are opinionated, and don't offer to save passwords in private/incognito mode (with no overrides). Which means I just avoid the whole experience when possible. Similarly, things like Focus let you access a throwaway experience even more easily. Still no password saving though.

DoubleMalt 9y ago

That might bring make me bring back part of my browsing to Firefox. The identities functionality was what made me use Chrome almost exclusively the last two years.

Manishearth 9y ago
Chrome doesn't have this. Chrome has profiles, which Firefox has had for years.
- foobar20198 9y ago
  Switching between profiles in Firefox is the most painful experience ever. Running multiple Firefox profiles simultaneously requires using a terminal command. Switching between profiles in Chrome involves clicking on an easy to find button, and lets you easily run multiple profiles in parallel. No terminal involved, accessible to anyone. To be fair, running multiple chrome profiles in parallel kills my (somewhat old) machine (mostly by virtue of having too many tabs in each profile), so Firefox does win there.
  - poiru 9y ago
    Check out about:profiles! While not nearly as nice as the Chrome UI, it is definitely more approachable than using a terminal.

jqs79 9y ago

How does this compare with using multiple profiles and the -no-remote flag? Does this manage only cookies, or does it also separate local storage (HTML5 session/local/global/web sql database), webcache, window.name caching (if the same tab can use multiple profiles), web history, flash cookies, for those who still have flash installed, etc. People might get a false sense of security if all of these methods of saving data in the browser are not also separated along with cookies.

groovecoder 9y ago
Check out https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Project/Containers#What_is_.28and_isn.27t.29_separated_between_Containers https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Projec... for the details of what is - and isn't - separated between Containers.
- jqs79 9y ago
  Thanks. So it appears that most of it is separated, with the exception of web history and search and form data (which can be identifying). This was also interesting: "Users can log into multiple accounts on the same site, even when the site does not natively support concurrent sessions. ... Current solutions: Users open multiple browsers (this takes users away from Firefox). A user opens one account in Private Browsing mode (this has a limit of 2 accounts, and forces one to be ephemeral)." There is no mention here of the -no-remote flag which has been available for many years.
  - 482794793792894 9y ago
    Well, the vast majority of users have no idea of the -no-remote or -new-instance flags, let alone of Firefox profiles.
482794793792894 9y ago
Generally speaking, Container Tabs try to make you look towards the internet like several users while on your end it behaves like a single-user experience. So, things like history, bookmarks and add-ons are not separated by Container Tabs. And the technology behind this was developed by the Tor Browser devs and then uplifted into Firefox and reused for this, so this is a proper security/privacy feature, not something that only works on the surface.

lucaspottersky 9y ago

this is _AWESOME_!!! maybe the best feature since HTML5 has gone mainstream! i'm so tired of using Icognito Window for that!

lasermike026 9y ago

Awesome! I wish the UI was a little tighter.

feanaro 9y ago

I wonder if there is any reason each tab isn't spawned in its own container. It seems the natural thing to do once you have implemented this, since it maximizes privacy. Unless the resource usage is the limiting factor, I don't see a downside. Am I missing something?

genghizkhan 9y ago
You could open five tabs of Facebook, and you'd probably want each one to share its container with the four others unless you specifically want it not to.
- feanaro 9y ago
  True. It still seems like an unfortunate miss of opportunity since this is essentially an UI problem. It would be great if there was an option to switch the default the other way around: all tabs are opened in their own containers unless you open a tab by "cloning" from an existing tab (for instance, by right-clicking).
groovecoder 9y ago
That's what Containers on the Go does: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/containers-on-the-go/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/containers-on... It wasn't our core use-case, but there's a Web Extension API for others to build on!
- feanaro 9y ago
  Very interesting. I'm thrilled that there's a Web Extension API, this sounds like a killer feature. Now if only Pentadactyl/Vimperator could be reproduced on top of Web Extensions without loss of functionality... ;-)
482794793792894 9y ago
It breaks some webpages to do that and Mozilla unfortunately can't always just put user privacy above all else, because then webpage owners have little incentive to test their webpage in Firefox, as they'll make less money if they can't invade user privacy so much anymore. Tor Browser has essentially what you described, so it's not the case that resource usage would be problematic.

stevenhubertron 9y ago

I would swap to Firefox in a second if I could live with their font renderings. It's just so different than what I am used to in Chrome/Safari/Opera and for some reason its really hard for me to read.

MattSteelblade 9y ago
What OS?
- yoasif_ 9y ago
  Must be macOS. It looks fine for me in macOS, FWIW.
482794793792894 9y ago
Chrome/Safari/Opera all use the WebKit/Blink font renderer, so yeah, those will look similar. Firefox relies on your OS' font renderer, so maybe try to tweak the settings there.

provemewrong 9y ago

Another fan of containers. I switched to Chromium/Safari a long time ago, but installed Nightly 57 the other day out of curiosity, and containers is definitely the best feature in it. Only thing I would love even more would be a private/incognito container (or basically private tabs alongside regular tabs without the need for opening a private new window).

esaym 9y ago

Is the "initial" version really "4.0.1"?

urda 9y ago
Why are you so concerned with a version number? It is just a number.

Tajnymag 9y ago

Do these separate history as well?

nachtigall 9y ago
No, but please upvote if you also want this feature ;) https://github.com/mozilla/testpilot-containers/issues/47 https://github.com/mozilla/testpilot-containers/issues/47

pbreit 9y ago

This is the one feature that keeps me from using Safari.

witten 9y ago

Dumb question: Does the implementation have anything to do with containers? E.g., Docker? Or is this just overloading an existing industry term?

mrmekon 9y ago
Docker didn't invent the term 'container' for... well, _containing_ an environment. It's not really overloaded here. 'Container' means a contained environment that can see itself, and cannot see other contained environments on the same machine/network. It has the same basic meaning for both Docker and Firefox. Docker was released in 2013, so if you search for "software container" or "software virtual container", or "chroot container" on Google filtered to before 01-01-2012, you will find plenty of examples of it from the past. LXC - Linux Containers – was released in 2008... Virtuozzo Containers since at least 2000. Here's something called Aurora for containerizing CORBA services in 1998: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/BFb0054506?no-access=true https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/BFb0054506?no-acce...
- witten 9y ago
  Sure, I'm familiar with the history. It's just that, all prior art aside, the term "container" at this point in time has a pretty particular connotation.

dexzod 9y ago

The article says: "online trackers can’t easily connect the browsing", which seems to imply that they can still connect the browsing. Why can't they be completely prevented from tracking other browsing. The second question I have is how is this different from Firefox profiles?

stefano 9y ago
They can still track you through your IP address, or by a combination of many browser/computer/OS properties available through JS, for example window size, browser agent, OS, fonts installed, etc. All these things don't identify you by themselves, but with enough of them you can build a fingerprint which is (almost) unique.
482794793792894 9y ago
Firefox Profiles function like a multi-user experience whereas Container Tabs function like a single-user experience that only looks like multiple users towards the internet. So, for example browsing history, bookmarks and add-ons are not separated by Container Tabs. Also, you can (obviously) use them in tabs, not just in separate windows like profiles.

gaius_baltar 9y ago

This is great! I have been emulating this feature for years with multiple profiles, but let's get things right: it takes some work and it is hard to teach non-techie folks how to do the same. Time to test the thing.

tjoff 9y ago

I really like this, but why for everything that is holy does it not work in Private Windows? I use Private mode a lot and it doesn't really make sense to group everything together just because it is "Private".

Jeaye 9y ago

I was in the test pilot for this and I had one singular gripe which I don't think has been addressed or brought up anywhere else I've seen: I want to be able to move a tab from one container to another. It's so easy to open a tab in the default container, or the wrong container, and being able to move that tab, along with all the data it has spawned (like cookies) would make this a killer feature for me. The only other thing, which admittedly makes my one singular gripe less singular, is that I didn't see any separation in the history, as far as what was in a given container. In an ideal world, each container would have its own "Show all history" data.

groovecoder 9y ago
https://addons.mozilla.org/nn-no/firefox/addon/context-plus/ https://addons.mozilla.org/nn-no/firefox/addon/context-plus/ does the first part.
- Jeaye 9y ago
  Thank you! This is absolutely essential for a good container experience.

SubiculumCode 9y ago

I've been using containers in test pilot for about a month and I love it. Google is separated from my news reading, is separated from my banking, is separated from my shopping, is separated from my leisure activity, is separated from my work activity. Once you set it up to aways open a site within a designated container it is all smooth. However, I wonder. What is the technical reason for not making it default to 1 container by site? Sure that would mean hundreds of containers...but does that pose performance problems?

Sylos 9y ago
> However, I wonder. What is the technical reason for not making it default to 1 container by site? Sure that would mean hundreds of containers...but does that pose performance problems? It would break some webpages. Also, yes, the vast majority of broken things will be tracking, but as a browser vendor you sort of need to not piss off webpage owners (which often benefit from tracking, directly or indirectly), as otherwise they'll stop testing their webpage against your browser. Also, as far as I understand things, Tor Browser actually has what essentially is a separate Container Tab per domain. It's described somewhat more precisely here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Project/Containers#An_extended_origin https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Projec...

nvr219 9y ago

FINAAAAAAALLLY

mderazon 9y ago

I like this but I like chrome multi profile model better. I like that extensions are separate for each profile. For example, I have two separate LastPass accounts. One for work and a personal one. There is no way for me to keep them separate like this.

Rusky 9y ago
Firefox already has that sort of profiles, though they are somewhat less visible than the equivalent Chrome feature.
- mderazon 9y ago
  Do you know how ? Through which extension?
  - Rusky 9y ago
    No extension at all- it's built in. Try visiting about:profile or launching Firefox with the -p flag.

Proven 9y ago

Nobody will know your s3krets Except FireFox who will sell them aggregated for a non-profit...

MadWombat 9y ago

But is it going to work once FF drops add-on support?

yoasif_ 9y ago
Firefox isn't dropping add-on support, they are deprecating their old add-on model. But yes, this continues to work after Firefox 57.

mattacular 9y ago

Can someone give a quick summary of how this differs from Google Chrome "People" accounts? On the surface they seem very similar. Thanks!

thinbeige 9y ago

This is my most wanted feature for a browser. Anyone knows if every instance has not just a different cookies set but also different canvas fingerprints?

steveklabnik 9y ago
I think you want to read this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15258485 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15258485
groovecoder 9y ago
No. Canvas-fingerprinting is mitigated in other protections; they are not per-Container. :/

drvortex 9y ago

So this basically replicates the functionality provided by https://sessionbox.io/ https://sessionbox.io/ Is multi-process here already?

yoasif_ 9y ago
> Is multi-process here already? Yes.

the_common_man 9y ago

Press and hold in the '+' button shows the container menu. Took we a while to figure this out.

rb666 9y ago

Great feature! I switched to FF Nightly some months ago, and I can confirm the performance is great. Sadly I had to switch back to Chrome, the quality of extensions in Chrome is just much higher. Now, I only just learned recently that in theory you can use Chrome extensions in Firefox, does this actually work well? Or just so-so.

482794793792894 9y ago
So, this extension quality problem isn't new. Firefox's current extension API is really powerful, but really complicated and it's not really an API, it's more-so just a way to fuck around with Firefox's source code, so if Mozilla changes things then generally extensions break and need to be updated. Because of that Mozilla has wanted to move to a different extension API for a long time, they just couldn't really afford to, because it would require breaking all extensions for good. Now they are at the point where they do feel like breaking all extensions weighs up with the benefits. Another big factor here is the new multiprocess-architecture, which is the foundation for most of those performance improvements that you've seen, and also requires breaking all extensions. (Currently those old extensions can still be used, but Firefox will then drop back to singleprocess - another quality problem that you likely encountered.) So, now they needed that new extension API. And instead of writing and testing a completely new API, Mozilla decided to base it off of Chrome's extension API. Some smaller Chrome-specific APIs were left out / adjusted, but short of that and potential bugs in the implementation, Firefox is going to be compatible with Chrome extensions. (They are also adding new APIs that Chrome does not support, because they want to offer more extensibility, so it's essentially a superset of Chrome's extension API.) For most extension developers, the only porting work is going to be to test it, work around bugs if they run into some and then upload it to addons.mozilla.org. The more or less 1.0 release of that implementation is going to be with Firefox 57 on November 14th, which is also when the old extension API is going to be disabled. But most of this new extension API (called "WebExtensions") is already in Firefox as of today, there's just still some bugs left to be squished. So, that's why and how you can run Chrome extensions in Firefox. It's up to the individual extension developers to port their extension. Well, that's the normal path, which is not going to be so-so. As I said, the porting work is often minimal. So minimal that it can almost be automated. That's why this extension can exist: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/chrome-store-foxified/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/chrome-store-... Assuming there's no bugs, then the only part which can't be automated is signing the extension. Haven't done it myself yet, but from what I hear, it's a matter of creating/having a Firefox Account, uploading the extension-file and then waiting for a few days or so. So, to summarize: Firefox now supports Chrome extensions with minimal porting work necessary, meaning that lots of those will get ported over. You can try to port things on your own and if there's no bugs then it shouldn't be hard (and it's not hard to find out if there are bugs). And lots of old, unmaintained and problematic extensions will get thrown out with Firefox 57, making it much easier to find the qualitatively better ones.

piyush_soni 9y ago

Not sure. I've been using separate "Work" and "Personal" profiles at my workplace, and can beautifully have two Firefox sync accounts syncing their own stuff. This limitation of the new Container extension prevents me from using it as I'd never want my personal and work set of extensions, bookmarks, and history to mingle with each other. Big oversight.

482794793792894 9y ago
Well, that's just the two different use-cases. Container Tabs are not trying to replace profiles.

matt_f 9y ago

Can anyone from Mozilla here explain what this is written in, or how it works? "Containers" makes me immediately think of Docker-like containerized applications, which I suspect is not actually the case here.

groovecoder 9y ago
It's a Web Extension add-on, so it's written in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. There should be a post on hacks.mozila.org soon.

timthelion 9y ago

I love this! I tried to do this by running multiple instances of firefox in separate Docker containers using software I wrote for the task (see subuser.org), and while it works, for more than a few different accounts it gets slow to switch between them because my system won't keep all of the instances of firefox in memory.

winterlight 9y ago

I tried this feature when it was available only in pilot mode. It was very nice and fitted quite well my uses. But the UX back then could use some improvements. For example, opening a new tab in a specific container took way too many clicks. And you couldn't just to CTR+T because it would always open the tab in the default container, rather than that of the active tab.

Entangled 9y ago

I've been doing multiple containers for multiple accounts opening five different browsers (SF, FX, CR, OP, TR). Now I only need Safari for my regular browsing, Firefox for multiple accounts and Opera for free VPN.

TheRealPomax 9y ago
Free, but you get exactly what you pay for: a rather bad VPN bordering on "this is not a VPN at all". Of course, you should not believe a random commenter on HN for that, so hit up https://thatoneprivacysite.net/vpn-comparison-chart/ https://thatoneprivacysite.net/vpn-comparison-chart/ and use that as a starting point to verify for yourself whether or not Opera's VPN is any good. If you want security rather than security veneer, use a real VPN instead, with browsers set to either use or ignore the system proxy, depending on what you want out of each browser.

hobarrera 9y ago

I've been using the tests version of this for some time now. It's great. Keeping work/personal sessions from mixing is really useful (eg: I want my work google account whenever I visit gmail, but my personal one for youtube). You can also set certain domains to open on certain containers by default. It's available here for now, but I really hope this ends up making it into firefox itself: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/multi-account...

Multiuser 9y ago

I have just downloaded Firefox Multi-Account Containers but I can't find information on how to use it.I am not an expert.

greggarious 9y ago

One issue I see is that it seems to be based on domains. (Ex: if I want a container for my streaming apps, there's no way to segregate Amazon Video from the rest of the "shopping" app) Then again I may be getting too fine grained with my personas but segregating Reddit, HN et al away from my Google account and away from my streaming accounts seems to kick tracking in the ass.