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I've been using this since it was new. I'm very frustrated to say the UI/UX hasn't seen any significant update. Containers are still synced separately, so any

I've been using this since it was new. I'm very frustrated to say the UI/UX hasn't seen any significant update. Containers are still synced separately, so any fresh install of Firefox will have the tutorial UX and the default 4 containers, even after syncing. Also, address bar completion is still monolithic, making it very easy to accidentally open a site in an undesired container. That can be worked around by adding every domain to a default container, but most of the utility of containers is to use several for a single domain, i.e. multiple email accounts each with their own container instances. Containers are a feature I find very valuable, but they really need their UX to be a core browser feature, not an addon.

herklwlkjwher 4y ago
container sync has been a thing for a while, but you have to enable it: https://i.imgur.com/UBj3TjW.png https://i.imgur.com/UBj3TjW.png
- fooqux 4y ago
  Where do you find that at? I just looked in both the Sync settings and Container settings and I do not see that setting.
  - thomastjeffery 4y ago
    It might be always-enabled now. Either way, containers sync is a separate event that can't be triggered manually.
  - herklwlkjwher 4y ago
    https://i.imgur.com/hMmnlB7.png https://i.imgur.com/hMmnlB7.png
    - j16sdiz 4y ago
      This is a setting under the extension page and is not searchable from firefox settings. Was expecting it under the standard account sync setting page.
    - fooqux 4y ago
      Thank you, I didn't realize it had additional settings here.
- thomastjeffery 4y ago
  Yes, and the flow is as I described. 1. Install Firefox. 2. Log in to fresh Firefox instance. 3. Let browser-wide sync happen. 4. Sync installs multi-account containers addon. 5. Four empty default containers are created. New user welcome flow is active. 6. Sign in to multi-account containers addon. Wait for container sync to do its thing. 7. Containers sync invisibly in the background. - Default containers that you deleted before (in the instance you are syncing from) still exist in this fresh instance. - New user welcome UX is still active.
  - croutonwagon 4y ago
    Also....for me. At one point a janked up Firefox instlal on 8.1 created something like 100+ duplicates of some of my containers, specifically ones names TEst and Test2. So each time i setup a new browser and sync then, i have to go through and manually delete all the duplicates. They dont re-appear once deleted and changes still sync (ie: if i add a URL rule to always open in x container) but holy crap is it annoying.
    - freddie_mercury 4y ago
      This happened to me many, many times. Luckily I'm able to track down containers.json and remove them that way. It also would never sync to my laptop for some reason? The overall bad syncing experience was the main reason I stopped using them.
      - croutonwagon 4y ago
        ya know.....it never occured to me to really track down the json file. Even though i totally know firefox really loves making use of them. Even had a sanitize script at one point that would kill any session on my work computer nightly and scrub my history without logging me out of sync account at a previous job. I dont setup a new machine all that often that I care too much. I figured it was a misconfigured cloud DB point, that at best I could get Mozilla to clean up and let me re-sync, but even then didnt bother to open a ticket.
    - 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
jokoon 4y ago
Agree, it's also quite awkward to link a domain to a container, and sometimes it doesn't work well, for example gmail because it also uses Google.com (I want to separate Gmail and my Google search)
- roter 4y ago
  You can open a bookmark in a chosen tab via the context menu when right-clicking on a bookmark in e.g. your toolbar. I use this to separate Gmail accounts. I use private search for Google search.
blibble 4y ago
it also has about 3-4 different UIs, all of which have very slightly different options brilliant functionality, just the UI is beyond awful
rraghur 4y ago
Is there a good native way now to set up url patterns (domain, sub domain, regex etc) to open in a specified container? I've been using a non add-on store addon for this.. and no idea why something basic like that would not be in the core or this add-on
- jck 4y ago
  I am not sure what you mean by non addon store addon. Containerise is on amo and supports glob and regex patterns. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/containerise/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/containerise/
  - DavideNL 4y ago
    …which does not support Firefox sync to sync its (container)settings
    - bjord 4y ago
      I don't see any reason why it couldn't. It's just a pull request away!
      - DavideNL 4y ago
        https://github.com/kintesh/containerise/issues/30 https://github.com/kintesh/containerise/issues/30
  - dietr1ch 4y ago
    Why do we need this? I'd have every tld on it's own profile and allow creating groups that merge profiles if needed.
  - rraghur 4y ago
    Have tried that - but the patterns there aren't case insensitive (and no way I could find to make them so); the one that I use is a fork of containerise - search for bifulsushi on bitbucket
neltnerb 4y ago
You don't like the UI? It feels like a core feature to me, the only serious friction I have is that I also use temporary containers which overrides my selection to open a certain site in a particular container. But you just tell it not to open a temporary containers for that domain and you're good. So really I've only seen this take much thought when combined with temporary containers.
- UberFly 4y ago
  Sadly the Temporary Containers extension seems abandoned at this point. No updates in two years.
cmcode 4y ago
I had similar complaints about the UX for the built-in containers extension, so as a labor of love, I wrote a helper extension to make containers a little more intuitive: https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/containers-helper https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/containers-helper The simplest improvement is that you can use e.g. Alt+Shift+D to open a little popup and start typing to find your container(s). You can also use the extension to import and export containers, as well as some other features. The extension respects your privacy completely and is not programmed to make any outbound network requests.
- vladvasiliu 4y ago
  This functionality seems to be partially included in the official extension now. There's a "search container name field", but it's not active when you open the pop-up (hence the partial). I don't know when it arrived, I'm pretty sure it hasn't been there too long, but I don't pay too much attention to this extension's UI. I'm running Firefox 109.
  - sdk- 4y ago
    It landed about a month ago. I'm the contributor who implement this patch and I already have another one in the work that would let you focus the filter box when you type "/".
jhoechtl 4y ago
Mozilla is on Googles drip. You can't expect this feature seeing much love it's against the donors intents.
- kaba0 4y ago
  And that drip is just as important for google to avoid an insanely huge monopoly lawsuit, so this is just the usual shitting on certain open-source projects without any reason.
  - have_faith 4y ago
    How true is that these days? I see it mentioned a lot. Google doesn’t have to keep them afloat just to avoid some hypothetical anti monopoly issues.
    - kaba0 4y ago
      Truer than ever. What other browser engine is there beside safari on macs? Not even Microsoft found it worthwhile to maintain an independent browser engine - in this world firefox is an open-source gem and instead of bringing it down for whatever reason we should try to preserve it.
      - boomboomsubban 4y ago
        Google is currently facing a search monopoly lawsuit where their payment to Mozilla is being used as evidence against them. If they were funding Mozilla to prevent a browser monopoly, the strategy certainly backfired.
  - godshatter 4y ago
    Not the parent poster, but is criticizing a browser I've used steadily since it became a thing for letting itself become primarily funded by it's largest competitor really "shitting on it"? Do you really not think there is a conflict of interest there?
zwayhowder 4y ago
Fortunately there are some cool extensions that do improve that logic. My favourite uses a new container for every AWS SSO login, so I can have multiple AWS accounts and/or roles on the go at the same time. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/aws-sso-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/aws-sso-conta... But completely agree, this should be a capability. It's like how Google Chrome profiles don't have the "open in another profile" menu option until you have two profiles already opened.
jerryzh 4y ago
the container is definitely synced at least for over a year. since I bought my laptop last year and everything is synced
heresie-dabord 4y ago
Firefox MAC is one of the first extensions that I install, after uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, and Cookie Autodelete. I install MAC despite my dislike for what the UI has become. The UX was fine until Firefox started pushing its VPN service via this extension. I encourage the use of VPNs, that isn't my objection. But now the installation of MAC requires too many clicks just to configure it, and some of those clicks are to dismiss things that I didn't request. Good UX practices: 1 = offer reasonable defaults 2 = be visually intelligible (make it easy to recognise borders, boxes, controls) 3 = make it easy to access important properties (don't bury or hide what people need) 4 = don't be annoying, nagging, exhausting, or confounding 5 = favour exposing features in an organised way 6 = let the user customise The MAC extension suffers in points 2, 3, and 4 during installation. Now that Firefox has forced the grouping of all extensions in an Extension folder that cannot be moved, we now have a problem with point 6 too.
- sdk- 4y ago
  You can still pin an extension to the toolbar and if it's already pinned Firefox will honor your setting in Fx 109+. IIRC, we can also in the extension manifest.json force the addon to show in the toolbar by default.

herklwlkjwher 4y ago

container sync has been a thing for a while, but you have to enable it: https://i.imgur.com/UBj3TjW.png https://i.imgur.com/UBj3TjW.png

fooqux 4y ago
Where do you find that at? I just looked in both the Sync settings and Container settings and I do not see that setting.
- thomastjeffery 4y ago
  It might be always-enabled now. Either way, containers sync is a separate event that can't be triggered manually.
- herklwlkjwher 4y ago
  https://i.imgur.com/hMmnlB7.png https://i.imgur.com/hMmnlB7.png
  - j16sdiz 4y ago
    This is a setting under the extension page and is not searchable from firefox settings. Was expecting it under the standard account sync setting page.
  - fooqux 4y ago
    Thank you, I didn't realize it had additional settings here.
thomastjeffery 4y ago
Yes, and the flow is as I described. 1. Install Firefox. 2. Log in to fresh Firefox instance. 3. Let browser-wide sync happen. 4. Sync installs multi-account containers addon. 5. Four empty default containers are created. New user welcome flow is active. 6. Sign in to multi-account containers addon. Wait for container sync to do its thing. 7. Containers sync invisibly in the background. - Default containers that you deleted before (in the instance you are syncing from) still exist in this fresh instance. - New user welcome UX is still active.
- croutonwagon 4y ago
  Also....for me. At one point a janked up Firefox instlal on 8.1 created something like 100+ duplicates of some of my containers, specifically ones names TEst and Test2. So each time i setup a new browser and sync then, i have to go through and manually delete all the duplicates. They dont re-appear once deleted and changes still sync (ie: if i add a URL rule to always open in x container) but holy crap is it annoying.
  - freddie_mercury 4y ago
    This happened to me many, many times. Luckily I'm able to track down containers.json and remove them that way. It also would never sync to my laptop for some reason? The overall bad syncing experience was the main reason I stopped using them.
    - croutonwagon 4y ago
      ya know.....it never occured to me to really track down the json file. Even though i totally know firefox really loves making use of them. Even had a sanitize script at one point that would kill any session on my work computer nightly and scrub my history without logging me out of sync account at a previous job. I dont setup a new machine all that often that I care too much. I figured it was a misconfigured cloud DB point, that at best I could get Mozilla to clean up and let me re-sync, but even then didnt bother to open a ticket.
  - 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

jokoon 4y ago

Agree, it's also quite awkward to link a domain to a container, and sometimes it doesn't work well, for example gmail because it also uses Google.com (I want to separate Gmail and my Google search)

roter 4y ago
You can open a bookmark in a chosen tab via the context menu when right-clicking on a bookmark in e.g. your toolbar. I use this to separate Gmail accounts. I use private search for Google search.

blibble 4y ago

it also has about 3-4 different UIs, all of which have very slightly different options brilliant functionality, just the UI is beyond awful

rraghur 4y ago

Is there a good native way now to set up url patterns (domain, sub domain, regex etc) to open in a specified container? I've been using a non add-on store addon for this.. and no idea why something basic like that would not be in the core or this add-on

jck 4y ago
I am not sure what you mean by non addon store addon. Containerise is on amo and supports glob and regex patterns. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/containerise/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/containerise/
- DavideNL 4y ago
  …which does not support Firefox sync to sync its (container)settings
  - bjord 4y ago
    I don't see any reason why it couldn't. It's just a pull request away!
    - DavideNL 4y ago
      https://github.com/kintesh/containerise/issues/30 https://github.com/kintesh/containerise/issues/30
- dietr1ch 4y ago
  Why do we need this? I'd have every tld on it's own profile and allow creating groups that merge profiles if needed.
- rraghur 4y ago
  Have tried that - but the patterns there aren't case insensitive (and no way I could find to make them so); the one that I use is a fork of containerise - search for bifulsushi on bitbucket

neltnerb 4y ago

You don't like the UI? It feels like a core feature to me, the only serious friction I have is that I also use temporary containers which overrides my selection to open a certain site in a particular container. But you just tell it not to open a temporary containers for that domain and you're good. So really I've only seen this take much thought when combined with temporary containers.

UberFly 4y ago
Sadly the Temporary Containers extension seems abandoned at this point. No updates in two years.

cmcode 4y ago

I had similar complaints about the UX for the built-in containers extension, so as a labor of love, I wrote a helper extension to make containers a little more intuitive: https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/containers-helper https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/containers-helper The simplest improvement is that you can use e.g. Alt+Shift+D to open a little popup and start typing to find your container(s). You can also use the extension to import and export containers, as well as some other features. The extension respects your privacy completely and is not programmed to make any outbound network requests.

vladvasiliu 4y ago
This functionality seems to be partially included in the official extension now. There's a "search container name field", but it's not active when you open the pop-up (hence the partial). I don't know when it arrived, I'm pretty sure it hasn't been there too long, but I don't pay too much attention to this extension's UI. I'm running Firefox 109.
- sdk- 4y ago
  It landed about a month ago. I'm the contributor who implement this patch and I already have another one in the work that would let you focus the filter box when you type "/".

jhoechtl 4y ago

Mozilla is on Googles drip. You can't expect this feature seeing much love it's against the donors intents.

kaba0 4y ago
And that drip is just as important for google to avoid an insanely huge monopoly lawsuit, so this is just the usual shitting on certain open-source projects without any reason.
- have_faith 4y ago
  How true is that these days? I see it mentioned a lot. Google doesn’t have to keep them afloat just to avoid some hypothetical anti monopoly issues.
  - kaba0 4y ago
    Truer than ever. What other browser engine is there beside safari on macs? Not even Microsoft found it worthwhile to maintain an independent browser engine - in this world firefox is an open-source gem and instead of bringing it down for whatever reason we should try to preserve it.
    - boomboomsubban 4y ago
      Google is currently facing a search monopoly lawsuit where their payment to Mozilla is being used as evidence against them. If they were funding Mozilla to prevent a browser monopoly, the strategy certainly backfired.
- godshatter 4y ago
  Not the parent poster, but is criticizing a browser I've used steadily since it became a thing for letting itself become primarily funded by it's largest competitor really "shitting on it"? Do you really not think there is a conflict of interest there?

zwayhowder 4y ago

Fortunately there are some cool extensions that do improve that logic. My favourite uses a new container for every AWS SSO login, so I can have multiple AWS accounts and/or roles on the go at the same time. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/aws-sso-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/aws-sso-conta... But completely agree, this should be a capability. It's like how Google Chrome profiles don't have the "open in another profile" menu option until you have two profiles already opened.

jerryzh 4y ago

the container is definitely synced at least for over a year. since I bought my laptop last year and everything is synced

heresie-dabord 4y ago

Firefox MAC is one of the first extensions that I install, after uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, and Cookie Autodelete. I install MAC despite my dislike for what the UI has become. The UX was fine until Firefox started pushing its VPN service via this extension. I encourage the use of VPNs, that isn't my objection. But now the installation of MAC requires too many clicks just to configure it, and some of those clicks are to dismiss things that I didn't request. Good UX practices: 1 = offer reasonable defaults 2 = be visually intelligible (make it easy to recognise borders, boxes, controls) 3 = make it easy to access important properties (don't bury or hide what people need) 4 = don't be annoying, nagging, exhausting, or confounding 5 = favour exposing features in an organised way 6 = let the user customise The MAC extension suffers in points 2, 3, and 4 during installation. Now that Firefox has forced the grouping of all extensions in an Extension folder that cannot be moved, we now have a problem with point 6 too.

sdk- 4y ago
You can still pin an extension to the toolbar and if it's already pinned Firefox will honor your setting in Fx 109+. IIRC, we can also in the extension manifest.json force the addon to show in the toolbar by default.