Facebook Container Extension

The version at the end of this version page is from 2018 so perhaps a [2018] in the title would be useful.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/facebook-cont...

Every time I try to use cool Firefox features and extensions to manage privacy, I wind up frustrated and lost in thought about just how good Firefox could be, if someone with vision and benevolent dictator status took charge.

1. Unify all of the various settings, addons, downloads, bookmark dialogs. They should all just be tabs, with consistent style. I should be able to "nav" to the others easily, and they should probably open as new tabs.

2. Multi-Account Container support baked in. This "containers are built in but borderline useless without more functionality from an addon" is... not great. It also means that no one seemingly "owns" containers to be able to do things like -- have static identifiers/ordering so that containers are actually portable.

3. There are Cookie management extensions, but the best is many years out of date and missing some obvious nice UX features. Many don't take into account containers. It's unclear what backup/restoring my settings will do here given, again, container identifiers don't map across Firefox instances, even when using Sync.

Imagine a Firefox with proper container + cookie management support built in. The same way I have this one Firefox instance tweaked, I could declaratively or Firefox-Sync-ly have the same settings for all of my Firefox instances. Even just some tab+session sync would make my life a lot easier. I've theorized about using SyncThings and "locks" to have a single Firefox profile ACTUALLY shared across machines, but that sounds like too much fighting against momentum.

I have a "money" container, my money apps open there, their cookies are whitelisted for that container, so I can start to "clear all cookies" and know that for certain sites, in certain containers, their cookies are whitelisted. This is ideal for privacy - I get to whitelist what stays, I get to isolate, I get to clear the rest of the trash at my whim.

I love Firefox, but I kinda hate it. I just don't hate it as much as I do Chrome (though, god forbid Chrome ever get proper Tree Style Tabs, it might be over). I just lament how good it COULD BE.

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Ironically, I feel like the existence of a FB specific container extension is... exactly proof that Firefox itself left something on the table.

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edit: to be clear, I don't fault anyone, I understand FOSS and priorities, and all of it. But, I see what could be [with inf resources] and want for better, that's all.

These extensions are killer, and are the primary reason I use Firefox. No other browsers have similar functionality at all that I've found.

For me, it's the best setup I've found in terms of cookie/session management. By default, I do want every new tab I open to come with a clean slate of no cookies, local storage, SQLite, or whatever other storage/tracking mechanisms are invented. If I need to open up a Google service, I simply open a new tab in my Google container. Combined with a good password manager to quickly login to lower security accounts, it is a marginal increase in work managing sessions, with the benefit of not tracking all your cookies and history around everywhere you go. The features aren't perfect since it's not a workflow optimized for consumer simplicity, but it works for me.

Temporary containers are the final solution to cookie based tracking, just like how forwarding services like Simplelogin (not affiliated) is the final solution to email spam. They have very similar underlying principles: reduce exposure by reducing the power you grant and starting afresh every time to avoid information leakage. With temporary containers, only whitelisted sites can have persistent storage and they are isolated by containers. All other sites can have cookies only within the same session, after which temporary container cookies get cleared. Combined with general content and script blocking solutions like uBlock Origin and resistFingerprinting, we can have reasonably good privacy.. for now at least, until the trackers catch up.

What are tree-style tabs?