5 ms·

FF just came out with multi account containers about a month ago -> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/ https://addons.moz

FF just came out with multi account containers about a month ago -> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
eli 9y ago
And prior to that you could run multiple Firefox instances with different profiles. Not super hard.
- nachtigall 9y ago
  > you could run multiple Firefox instances with different profiles But not at the same time, which is a showstopper to me (still using Firefox Nightly as main browser).
  - rhn_mk1 9y ago
    You can absolutely run multiple different instances at the same time. I've been using Firefox this way for over a year, 2 instances open right now.
    - drdaeman 9y ago
      It is possible, but it's messy in terms of which one is the default (clicking on links outside of the browser), taskbar/launcher buttons (OS- and DE-dependent, some configurations have issues e.g. with pinning) etc. I think there was something else - minor and just slightly inconvenient - but I forgot. Compared to ProfileManager, Container Tabs are absolutely awesome. Completely different experience, smooth and nice.
      - jakub_g 9y ago
        ProfileManager is a bit awkward indeed. You can pass `-p primaryprofile` and `-p secondaryprofile -no-remote` to make sure that links from OS are not opened in the 2nd instance, but then, when you close Firefox and click an external link, it will open Firefox with the last opened profile, which might be `secondaryprofile`. The solution for me was to use one Firefox installation per profile: primary = stable, secondary = nightly. Container tabs are way nicer than this, but since I open lots of tabs, I still like the distinction between stable and nightly (stable = regular browsing, nightly = FB).
icc97 9y ago
Firefox containers are awesome. Once you've got a GMail account it's really easy to fall into the trap of letting Google track your everything. GMail, Google searches, Google Maps, You Tube. Containers splits them out beautifully, with minimal tracking. With Chrome / Chromium, Google wants you to log-in using a Google account, so you fall into the trap again.
- Manishearth 9y ago
  Does Google actually track web activity when logged out whilst logged in to Chrome? By this I mean connecting e.g. searches done on google maps with your account, not just storing the history. Google of course has all the information server-side to do this; I'm unsure if they actually use it. There's usually a line on tracking that (you think) a company won't cross; e.g. I wouldn't expect Google to use browser fingerprinting to track you when logged out in a different browser, but I'm not sure about web activity in Chrome. Sounds plausible either way.
  - bonsai80 9y ago
    The use case for this is that you want to leave your gmail/youtube/etc all logged in, but not let Google track you all over the internet. My primary use for this feature is this specific use case. I created a "Google Spyware" container and configured Google-related things to open in there. If I go to google.com outside of that container, I'm a non-logged-in user. If I open it in the container I AM logged in, so I get all the convenience of staying logged in without the downside of all the surveillance. Of course there are other means to track me, but this is a big step in the right direction.
    - Manishearth 9y ago
      I know. I've been using containers ever since it was an experiment :) My question is independent of container tabs, it's a question of whether we know the level of tracking Google does on a signed-in chrome where your google account is not signed in in the session (is this even possible?)
jwillmer 9y ago
Do they sync?
- fbender 9y ago
  What do you mean by that? If your use case is not covered, you surely can write a WebExtension to provide the functionality. Containers as well as sync are exposed in the API.
  - jwillmer 9y ago
    I just wanted to know if the containers will be automatically synced across devices.
    - inferiorhuman 9y ago
      I can't even get them to persist after restarting FF. :/
      - fbender 9y ago
        Please describe the behaviour you're seeing vs. expecting. Is the session not restoring the URLs in the right container? That sounds like a bug to me. The container names (if you change from default) should be stored in the settings – if not, something is wrong on your machine. If you want to always open some specific URLs on start, pin those tabs.
        inferiorhuman 9y ago
        I updated the container names, colors, and icons. Opened a few tabs here and there. Installed a user agent switching plugin. Restarted to enable said plugin. While the session was restored, including the containers, the non-default container names/meta info were not. Tabs in non-default containers showed up with no labels, and there was no apparent way to open up a new tab in one of the custom containers. Also, changing a container's color does not change the color shown on existing tabs.
kronos29296 9y ago
Thanks to you I found something really useful. With this I can finally have the convenient replacement for the good old private window which gets overused for logging in to multiple accounts simultaneously.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

eli 9y ago

And prior to that you could run multiple Firefox instances with different profiles. Not super hard.

nachtigall 9y ago
> you could run multiple Firefox instances with different profiles But not at the same time, which is a showstopper to me (still using Firefox Nightly as main browser).
- rhn_mk1 9y ago
  You can absolutely run multiple different instances at the same time. I've been using Firefox this way for over a year, 2 instances open right now.
  - drdaeman 9y ago
    It is possible, but it's messy in terms of which one is the default (clicking on links outside of the browser), taskbar/launcher buttons (OS- and DE-dependent, some configurations have issues e.g. with pinning) etc. I think there was something else - minor and just slightly inconvenient - but I forgot. Compared to ProfileManager, Container Tabs are absolutely awesome. Completely different experience, smooth and nice.
    - jakub_g 9y ago
      ProfileManager is a bit awkward indeed. You can pass `-p primaryprofile` and `-p secondaryprofile -no-remote` to make sure that links from OS are not opened in the 2nd instance, but then, when you close Firefox and click an external link, it will open Firefox with the last opened profile, which might be `secondaryprofile`. The solution for me was to use one Firefox installation per profile: primary = stable, secondary = nightly. Container tabs are way nicer than this, but since I open lots of tabs, I still like the distinction between stable and nightly (stable = regular browsing, nightly = FB).

icc97 9y ago

Firefox containers are awesome. Once you've got a GMail account it's really easy to fall into the trap of letting Google track your everything. GMail, Google searches, Google Maps, You Tube. Containers splits them out beautifully, with minimal tracking. With Chrome / Chromium, Google wants you to log-in using a Google account, so you fall into the trap again.

Manishearth 9y ago
Does Google actually track web activity when logged out whilst logged in to Chrome? By this I mean connecting e.g. searches done on google maps with your account, not just storing the history. Google of course has all the information server-side to do this; I'm unsure if they actually use it. There's usually a line on tracking that (you think) a company won't cross; e.g. I wouldn't expect Google to use browser fingerprinting to track you when logged out in a different browser, but I'm not sure about web activity in Chrome. Sounds plausible either way.
- bonsai80 9y ago
  The use case for this is that you want to leave your gmail/youtube/etc all logged in, but not let Google track you all over the internet. My primary use for this feature is this specific use case. I created a "Google Spyware" container and configured Google-related things to open in there. If I go to google.com outside of that container, I'm a non-logged-in user. If I open it in the container I AM logged in, so I get all the convenience of staying logged in without the downside of all the surveillance. Of course there are other means to track me, but this is a big step in the right direction.
  - Manishearth 9y ago
    I know. I've been using containers ever since it was an experiment :) My question is independent of container tabs, it's a question of whether we know the level of tracking Google does on a signed-in chrome where your google account is not signed in in the session (is this even possible?)

jwillmer 9y ago

Do they sync?

fbender 9y ago
What do you mean by that? If your use case is not covered, you surely can write a WebExtension to provide the functionality. Containers as well as sync are exposed in the API.
- jwillmer 9y ago
  I just wanted to know if the containers will be automatically synced across devices.
  - inferiorhuman 9y ago
    I can't even get them to persist after restarting FF. :/
    - fbender 9y ago
      Please describe the behaviour you're seeing vs. expecting. Is the session not restoring the URLs in the right container? That sounds like a bug to me. The container names (if you change from default) should be stored in the settings – if not, something is wrong on your machine. If you want to always open some specific URLs on start, pin those tabs.
      - inferiorhuman 9y ago
        I updated the container names, colors, and icons. Opened a few tabs here and there. Installed a user agent switching plugin. Restarted to enable said plugin. While the session was restored, including the containers, the non-default container names/meta info were not. Tabs in non-default containers showed up with no labels, and there was no apparent way to open up a new tab in one of the custom containers. Also, changing a container's color does not change the color shown on existing tabs.

kronos29296 9y ago

Thanks to you I found something really useful. With this I can finally have the convenient replacement for the good old private window which gets overused for logging in to multiple accounts simultaneously.