6 ms·

The post briefly mentions multi-account containers[1]. I have loved using them and regard them as a killer feature for Firefox. Very few websites support accoun

by dguo 7y ago

The post briefly mentions multi-account containers[1]. I have loved using them and regard them as a killer feature for Firefox. Very few websites support account switching. Google is probably the best example, and even then, I don't really want to log in to both my personal and work Gmail within the same session. But containers effectively and cleanly enable multiple sessions for all websites. Like tabs so many years ago, it's the kind of feature that seems obvious in retrospect. I can't think of a hard technical reason why we couldn't have had container tabs a long time ago. I hope mobile and desktop OSes will one day implement the same feature for apps/programs. Whoever was involved in coming up with the idea and with implementing it, thank you! [1]: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers

bitexploder 7y ago
I literally run my browser in containers to achieve this. I still trust that more than letting the browser manage it. I call it ultra-private mode :)
- qplex 7y ago
  A poor mans container (at least under unix-alikes) is simply running the program as another user with 'su' or 'sudo'.
  - Hitton 7y ago
    That's too complicated. Use profiles for same result without having to use another user. firefox -new-instance -P
    - edoceo 7y ago
      I do this so frequently that I wrapped FF (and chrome) with a PyGTK starter, each profile with an icon. Less clicks to launch a new session of my preferred flavor
      - bryan_w 7y ago
        There use to be something called prism (not that one) that would do exactly this. The project was abandoned a few years ago sadly and I couldn't get it to work under a recent Ubuntu
      - wutbrodo 7y ago
        For those unaware, this interface already exists this simply in the browser's UI (the difference being that your approach allows launching from desktop)
        edoceo 7y ago
        In FF each profile is a different directory (good) for Chrome I force it to specific user-settings so there is no cross contamination. And yes, it's basically a trivial interface shortcutting that FF built tool.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - cpeterso 7y ago
      You can also create and launch new profiles from a running instance of Firefox on the about:profiles page.
- hellofunk 7y ago
  But modern tracking methods go far beyond whether not you’re actually logged into some site, I’m not sure how this is much of an improvement, your IP remains the same, your browser fingerprint is probably similar enough, if not identical, for them to track you regardless of whether you’re logged in. You only have to be logged in once on the machine from one container for all the other sites you visit in other containers to track you on any site that has a presence or tracking code associated with the one that you’ve logged into somewhere else.
  - the8472 7y ago
    > your IP remains the same Not necessarily, e.g. you could use VPNs for some containers or randomize the ipv6 suffix.
lima 7y ago
Chrome supports multiple profiles, and you can seamlessly switch between them using Ctrl-Shift-M and the "Open link as" context menu entry.
- mintplant 7y ago
  You can't mix tabs from multiple profiles in the same window, though. And they don't share extensions etc. They're much heavier weight than containers.
- dguo 7y ago
  Good point, but one of the key aspects about Firefox's implementation is that you can have different container tabs within the same window. As far as I know, that's still not possible with Chrome.
- jangid 7y ago
  FF also has multiple profiles feature. But nothing matches Containers. Containers are different. Containers keep only the identity data (sesssion, cookies etc.) separate. All other data is shared. Profiles are painful. History, Password Manager, Bookmarks all are accessible and shared across FF containers. This makes it really useful.
- oefrha 7y ago
  There are people who swear by Chrome’s profiles, then there are people who swear by Firefox’s containers. I’m in the former category. I’ve learned through various debates that as always, you’re not gonna convince anyone on the other side.
- crispinb 7y ago
  I don't think you can use them to automatically sequester urls to certain profiles though? That's a serious limitation for my use - eg. I always want gmail to open in my logged-in 'engoogled' container, and never want plain google searches to be logged in. I don't want to manually enforce those rules (that's what computers are for).
diafygi 7y ago
I love containers as well. Does anyone know when/if they'll be coming to Firefox for Android and iOS? Also, I really wish you would be able to specify which container you want in the Home button when using multiple urls for your default tabs. So this: https://gmail.com/|https://gmail.com/ Would become something like this: {container:personal}https://gmail.com/|{container:work}https://gmail.com/
- NilsIRL 7y ago
  I'm pretty sure Mozilla has abandoned Firefox on Android to work on Firefox Preview (code named Fenix). Here is the github issue that tracks container support on Firefox Preview: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/1481 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/1481
  - tomrod 7y ago
    I would LOVE to use Firefox on Android. But the UX is so kludgey! My main beefs - Refresh requires two clicks instead of the now-standard pull down (like Chrome) - Text resizing is _all_ _over_ _the_ _place_. I go to Reddit and the text shrinks down to size 3 or something. There is no clear way to make any adjustment whatsoever. Compare to Chrome/Chrome-clone Brave's very easy text resizing. Why do I love firefox on android? - Adblocking adblocking adblocking. Get rid of the absolutely garbage ad experiences that clutter up the majority of .com sites - Extensions - Zoom is easy versus other browsers
    - slenk 7y ago
      Have you tried the new browser, still called Firefox Preview on Android?
    - seba_dos1 7y ago
      Pulling down to refresh is so annoying. Way too easy to trigger accidentally. I really prefer the Firefox way.
  - fulafel 7y ago
briffle 7y ago
I love containers, and use them heavily, but am disappointed they don't sync to all your computers like bookmarks and extensions. Every new machine, I get to start over on the 'always open this site in work container'
- windexh8er 7y ago
  This. Please add this Firefox. For people who are anal that moving from machine to machine is the same container naming and ordering (for shortcuts to launch specific containers) is time consuming to redo by hand. Beyond that - for container users I recently started using "Temporary Containers" [0] and it's an awesome use case for disposable containers where no browser interaction is associated. It's a fantastic use of containers. [0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-con...
  - nextos 7y ago
    I use Temporary Containers everywhere, and I think it's a great step forward in terms of privacy and security. I wish one day we could have a different IP and browser fingerprint per temporary container.
- MrOxiMoron 7y ago
  yeah, that's the reason I stopped using them and switched to multiple profiles with syncing to different accounts.
  - stjohnswarts 7y ago
    I do the same, it works quite well. I still use multicontainer inside those though, 1 for social media and for everything else.
- jakecopp 7y ago
  Do containers transfer if you sync the Firefox profile with rsync or something? I haven't tried yet but if I get a second machine I'd like to be able to do this.
Hitton 7y ago
Problem with containers is that they don't work in anonymous mode (at least last time I tried them they didn't).
- astura 7y ago
  There is some sort of other setting you have to enable to get them to work in anonymous mode, something like "enable extensions in private mode" or something. Even then it only worked on my old computer, when I set up my new computer and enabled the setting and it didn't seem to "take" and I didn't fiddle around with it to fix it. The other option is installing an extension that simply deletes cookies when you close a tab.
- antpls 7y ago
  I confirm. I never used containers before, and when I tried, I discovered it wouldn't work with how I configured firefox, which is always ON private mode.
ubercow13 7y ago
Containers still have quite a bad UX though. It’s OK to open a tab in the desired container and load Facebook, but whenever you leave Facebook via a link, it will stay in the same container. If you eventually end up on a website you want to be logged in to, you’ll have to manually switch to the right container again. It seems like containers are a powerful concept with multiple different uses, but the UX for each of those uses would need to be different and at the moment it’s not optimised for any of them. Maybe there are extensions that can fix this for specific use cases but when I looked it seemed hard to work out which ones I’d want.
- mbrumlow 7y ago
  Is that not the point though? You don't want to expose to Facebook that you have a account on some 3rd party site and expose to some 3red party site you have a Facebook accoun. You describe exactly what I would want and expect.
  - ubercow13 7y ago
    Do you mean that it would be exposed by the referrer? I guess so. It’s not clear whether the referrer is preserved anyway when you refresh the external page in a different container. In theory could the external page have a Facebook widget that would be able to see your Facebook account anyway? I’m not really sure, I don’t know enough about how cookies work across domains. I feel like this is the point. It’s not really clear how to best use containers to protect your privacy; it feels like you have to understand a lot about how the web works and how Firefox works.
    - nitrogen 7y ago
      Beyond referrer, there are utm tags, unique URLs, fingerprinting, etc.
    - maksimum 7y ago
      > It’s not really clear how to best use containers to protect your privacy Do you think private browsing sessions are also unclear/have unintuitive UX? It seems like firefox containers are just private browsing sessions that you can close and re-open.
edcastro 7y ago
I just wish they had per-container proxy support. That would make me immediately switch to Firefox.
- kompakt 7y ago
  That's a really good idea. To achieve similar result, I am currently using multiple Firefox profiles which have different proxies configured. I also have separate profiles for social media. It wouldn't be bad if they made profiles work in the same way or with similar functionality like containers work (profile per tab, each tab uses different proxy etc.). Ideally, I'd love to have Firefox handle the whole proxying or even networking part. Like have each Firefox profile use different network gateway (useful when you want to route all network traffic trough VPN for example).
- sciurus 7y ago
  What's the use case for this? You can already configure different proxies to apply to different domains. The UX isn't great though, you have to use https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_auto-config https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_auto-config
  - Drdrdrq 7y ago
    Not GP, but it seems like a great idea to me. Using different proxies you can have a different IP address for each profile, making tracking more difficult.
- yoasif_ 7y ago
  I haven't tried this, but you can try: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/sidebery/ https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/sidebery/ It claims to allow you to set proxy settings per container.
Abishek_Muthian 7y ago
But getting separate session between different private browsing windows has been requested for a very long time with no dice [1]. [1]:https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=117222 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=117222
codedokode 7y ago
It doesn't protect from fingerprinting your machine using WebGL (whose main purpose is to extract data about video card), canvas (main purpose of canvas is to check what fonts you have and how they are rendered), screen size, OS and IP address and TTL of IP packets. Then you carelessly enter your non-temporary email address or phone number to get an order from a shop and the shop links your fingerprint to your offline identifiers. Now you cannot escape from tracking anymore. Fingerprinting is real. For example, a site of government services for Moscow has fingerprinting code and users log into it with their real name. You can use containers or private mode but your fingerprint stays the same and uniquely identifies you. Disable WebGL, canvas, accessing non-default fonts from browser, reading OS name and screen size right now and vote for disabling it by default if you don't want to be tracked.
crispinb 7y ago
I wish it was a bit more reliable - browser crashes and/or updates have lost all my containers several times. Nevertheless once you've got used to it, it becomes an essential feature. Another reason to be thankful for Firefox's existence.
pfranz 7y ago
I work remotely and use separate browsers for work and personal stuff. I was hoping Firefox would allow me to use one browser, but it didn't quite work out like I had hoped. There's no keyboard shortcuts, so you're forced to use mouse/menus (I did find an extension to open a new window in a container using shortcuts). I'm pretty sure history/cookies are global--I couldn't delete all cookies from a container (I think there's a ticket to better support this). I was hoping to close everything from a container when I'm not working and reopen it later...this seems to only work for the tabs in the current window. It seems like a great feature. It's definitely a differentiator. Perhaps I had too specific of an approach going in. In general, for me tabs in a window are all related so flipping windows or closing windows are the context I switch between.
- stjohnswarts 7y ago
  I use profiles for this, I work on secure stuff and can't afford to have any chance of mixing work and my personal computing adventures. Profiles are also extremely easy to use, but it does cost you 2X memory for the separate processes. Just throwing another option out there.
- tripzilch 7y ago
  I wish Firefox had customizable shortcuts for everything, tabs, bookmarks, etc. It's just weird that you can't.
buboard 7y ago
I think the best way to do that is to keep the browser data directories completely separate by using the --user-data-dir option in chrome (--profile in firefox)
bit_4l 7y ago
Didn’t know Firefox has this ability, it’s the reason why I have to stuck with Chrome ever since. Couples of click to switch profile and that’s it.

by dguo 7y ago

bitexploder 7y ago

I literally run my browser in containers to achieve this. I still trust that more than letting the browser manage it. I call it ultra-private mode :)

qplex 7y ago
A poor mans container (at least under unix-alikes) is simply running the program as another user with 'su' or 'sudo'.
- Hitton 7y ago
  That's too complicated. Use profiles for same result without having to use another user. firefox -new-instance -P
  - edoceo 7y ago
    I do this so frequently that I wrapped FF (and chrome) with a PyGTK starter, each profile with an icon. Less clicks to launch a new session of my preferred flavor
    - bryan_w 7y ago
      There use to be something called prism (not that one) that would do exactly this. The project was abandoned a few years ago sadly and I couldn't get it to work under a recent Ubuntu
    - wutbrodo 7y ago
      For those unaware, this interface already exists this simply in the browser's UI (the difference being that your approach allows launching from desktop)
      - edoceo 7y ago
        In FF each profile is a different directory (good) for Chrome I force it to specific user-settings so there is no cross contamination. And yes, it's basically a trivial interface shortcutting that FF built tool.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - cpeterso 7y ago
    You can also create and launch new profiles from a running instance of Firefox on the about:profiles page.
hellofunk 7y ago
But modern tracking methods go far beyond whether not you’re actually logged into some site, I’m not sure how this is much of an improvement, your IP remains the same, your browser fingerprint is probably similar enough, if not identical, for them to track you regardless of whether you’re logged in. You only have to be logged in once on the machine from one container for all the other sites you visit in other containers to track you on any site that has a presence or tracking code associated with the one that you’ve logged into somewhere else.
- the8472 7y ago
  > your IP remains the same Not necessarily, e.g. you could use VPNs for some containers or randomize the ipv6 suffix.

lima 7y ago

Chrome supports multiple profiles, and you can seamlessly switch between them using Ctrl-Shift-M and the "Open link as" context menu entry.

mintplant 7y ago
You can't mix tabs from multiple profiles in the same window, though. And they don't share extensions etc. They're much heavier weight than containers.
dguo 7y ago
Good point, but one of the key aspects about Firefox's implementation is that you can have different container tabs within the same window. As far as I know, that's still not possible with Chrome.
jangid 7y ago
FF also has multiple profiles feature. But nothing matches Containers. Containers are different. Containers keep only the identity data (sesssion, cookies etc.) separate. All other data is shared. Profiles are painful. History, Password Manager, Bookmarks all are accessible and shared across FF containers. This makes it really useful.
oefrha 7y ago
There are people who swear by Chrome’s profiles, then there are people who swear by Firefox’s containers. I’m in the former category. I’ve learned through various debates that as always, you’re not gonna convince anyone on the other side.
crispinb 7y ago
I don't think you can use them to automatically sequester urls to certain profiles though? That's a serious limitation for my use - eg. I always want gmail to open in my logged-in 'engoogled' container, and never want plain google searches to be logged in. I don't want to manually enforce those rules (that's what computers are for).

diafygi 7y ago

I love containers as well. Does anyone know when/if they'll be coming to Firefox for Android and iOS? Also, I really wish you would be able to specify which container you want in the Home button when using multiple urls for your default tabs. So this: https://gmail.com/|https://gmail.com/ Would become something like this: {container:personal}https://gmail.com/|{container:work}https://gmail.com/

NilsIRL 7y ago
I'm pretty sure Mozilla has abandoned Firefox on Android to work on Firefox Preview (code named Fenix). Here is the github issue that tracks container support on Firefox Preview: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/1481 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/1481
- tomrod 7y ago
  I would LOVE to use Firefox on Android. But the UX is so kludgey! My main beefs - Refresh requires two clicks instead of the now-standard pull down (like Chrome) - Text resizing is _all_ _over_ _the_ _place_. I go to Reddit and the text shrinks down to size 3 or something. There is no clear way to make any adjustment whatsoever. Compare to Chrome/Chrome-clone Brave's very easy text resizing. Why do I love firefox on android? - Adblocking adblocking adblocking. Get rid of the absolutely garbage ad experiences that clutter up the majority of .com sites - Extensions - Zoom is easy versus other browsers
  - slenk 7y ago
    Have you tried the new browser, still called Firefox Preview on Android?
  - seba_dos1 7y ago
    Pulling down to refresh is so annoying. Way too easy to trigger accidentally. I really prefer the Firefox way.
- fulafel 7y ago

briffle 7y ago

I love containers, and use them heavily, but am disappointed they don't sync to all your computers like bookmarks and extensions. Every new machine, I get to start over on the 'always open this site in work container'

windexh8er 7y ago
This. Please add this Firefox. For people who are anal that moving from machine to machine is the same container naming and ordering (for shortcuts to launch specific containers) is time consuming to redo by hand. Beyond that - for container users I recently started using "Temporary Containers" [0] and it's an awesome use case for disposable containers where no browser interaction is associated. It's a fantastic use of containers. [0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-con...
- nextos 7y ago
  I use Temporary Containers everywhere, and I think it's a great step forward in terms of privacy and security. I wish one day we could have a different IP and browser fingerprint per temporary container.
MrOxiMoron 7y ago
yeah, that's the reason I stopped using them and switched to multiple profiles with syncing to different accounts.
- stjohnswarts 7y ago
  I do the same, it works quite well. I still use multicontainer inside those though, 1 for social media and for everything else.
jakecopp 7y ago
Do containers transfer if you sync the Firefox profile with rsync or something? I haven't tried yet but if I get a second machine I'd like to be able to do this.

Hitton 7y ago

Problem with containers is that they don't work in anonymous mode (at least last time I tried them they didn't).

astura 7y ago
There is some sort of other setting you have to enable to get them to work in anonymous mode, something like "enable extensions in private mode" or something. Even then it only worked on my old computer, when I set up my new computer and enabled the setting and it didn't seem to "take" and I didn't fiddle around with it to fix it. The other option is installing an extension that simply deletes cookies when you close a tab.
antpls 7y ago
I confirm. I never used containers before, and when I tried, I discovered it wouldn't work with how I configured firefox, which is always ON private mode.

ubercow13 7y ago

Containers still have quite a bad UX though. It’s OK to open a tab in the desired container and load Facebook, but whenever you leave Facebook via a link, it will stay in the same container. If you eventually end up on a website you want to be logged in to, you’ll have to manually switch to the right container again. It seems like containers are a powerful concept with multiple different uses, but the UX for each of those uses would need to be different and at the moment it’s not optimised for any of them. Maybe there are extensions that can fix this for specific use cases but when I looked it seemed hard to work out which ones I’d want.

mbrumlow 7y ago
Is that not the point though? You don't want to expose to Facebook that you have a account on some 3rd party site and expose to some 3red party site you have a Facebook accoun. You describe exactly what I would want and expect.
- ubercow13 7y ago
  Do you mean that it would be exposed by the referrer? I guess so. It’s not clear whether the referrer is preserved anyway when you refresh the external page in a different container. In theory could the external page have a Facebook widget that would be able to see your Facebook account anyway? I’m not really sure, I don’t know enough about how cookies work across domains. I feel like this is the point. It’s not really clear how to best use containers to protect your privacy; it feels like you have to understand a lot about how the web works and how Firefox works.
  - nitrogen 7y ago
    Beyond referrer, there are utm tags, unique URLs, fingerprinting, etc.
  - maksimum 7y ago
    > It’s not really clear how to best use containers to protect your privacy Do you think private browsing sessions are also unclear/have unintuitive UX? It seems like firefox containers are just private browsing sessions that you can close and re-open.

edcastro 7y ago

I just wish they had per-container proxy support. That would make me immediately switch to Firefox.

kompakt 7y ago
That's a really good idea. To achieve similar result, I am currently using multiple Firefox profiles which have different proxies configured. I also have separate profiles for social media. It wouldn't be bad if they made profiles work in the same way or with similar functionality like containers work (profile per tab, each tab uses different proxy etc.). Ideally, I'd love to have Firefox handle the whole proxying or even networking part. Like have each Firefox profile use different network gateway (useful when you want to route all network traffic trough VPN for example).
sciurus 7y ago
What's the use case for this? You can already configure different proxies to apply to different domains. The UX isn't great though, you have to use https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_auto-config https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_auto-config
- Drdrdrq 7y ago
  Not GP, but it seems like a great idea to me. Using different proxies you can have a different IP address for each profile, making tracking more difficult.
yoasif_ 7y ago
I haven't tried this, but you can try: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/sidebery/ https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/sidebery/ It claims to allow you to set proxy settings per container.

Abishek_Muthian 7y ago

But getting separate session between different private browsing windows has been requested for a very long time with no dice [1]. [1]:https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=117222 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=117222

codedokode 7y ago

It doesn't protect from fingerprinting your machine using WebGL (whose main purpose is to extract data about video card), canvas (main purpose of canvas is to check what fonts you have and how they are rendered), screen size, OS and IP address and TTL of IP packets. Then you carelessly enter your non-temporary email address or phone number to get an order from a shop and the shop links your fingerprint to your offline identifiers. Now you cannot escape from tracking anymore. Fingerprinting is real. For example, a site of government services for Moscow has fingerprinting code and users log into it with their real name. You can use containers or private mode but your fingerprint stays the same and uniquely identifies you. Disable WebGL, canvas, accessing non-default fonts from browser, reading OS name and screen size right now and vote for disabling it by default if you don't want to be tracked.

crispinb 7y ago

I wish it was a bit more reliable - browser crashes and/or updates have lost all my containers several times. Nevertheless once you've got used to it, it becomes an essential feature. Another reason to be thankful for Firefox's existence.

pfranz 7y ago

I work remotely and use separate browsers for work and personal stuff. I was hoping Firefox would allow me to use one browser, but it didn't quite work out like I had hoped. There's no keyboard shortcuts, so you're forced to use mouse/menus (I did find an extension to open a new window in a container using shortcuts). I'm pretty sure history/cookies are global--I couldn't delete all cookies from a container (I think there's a ticket to better support this). I was hoping to close everything from a container when I'm not working and reopen it later...this seems to only work for the tabs in the current window. It seems like a great feature. It's definitely a differentiator. Perhaps I had too specific of an approach going in. In general, for me tabs in a window are all related so flipping windows or closing windows are the context I switch between.

stjohnswarts 7y ago
I use profiles for this, I work on secure stuff and can't afford to have any chance of mixing work and my personal computing adventures. Profiles are also extremely easy to use, but it does cost you 2X memory for the separate processes. Just throwing another option out there.
tripzilch 7y ago
I wish Firefox had customizable shortcuts for everything, tabs, bookmarks, etc. It's just weird that you can't.

buboard 7y ago

I think the best way to do that is to keep the browser data directories completely separate by using the --user-data-dir option in chrome (--profile in firefox)

bit_4l 7y ago

Didn’t know Firefox has this ability, it’s the reason why I have to stuck with Chrome ever since. Couples of click to switch profile and that’s it.