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Firefox profiles: Private, focused spaces for all the ways you browse

blog.mozilla.org

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121–130 of 212 posts

Re: Firefox profiles: Private, focused spaces for all the ways you browse

#121

Post by damianh »

mulakosag wrote: post #65
krick wrote: post #57

So… what's changing? Profiles have been there for decade(s), is it just an alternative UI for folks who were unable to run firefox -p, or is there anything more substantial?

What a shocker right? I guess everyday normal people do dot use a command prompt much less open a terminal to open a browser profile. They like to click and icon and create/switch profile. Chrome, edge and many other browsers had this feature for ever. Not having ability to easily switch profiles is only reason I did not switch to Firefox full time even though I quite like the multi containers extension in Firefox fo…

It's actually astonishing that it took mozilla folks the guts of 20 years to get around to this glaring UX gap.

Re: Firefox profiles: Private, focused spaces for all the ways you browse

#123

Post by 1718627440 »

philip-b wrote: post #84

So, can I make it that when I click a URL in another program, Firefox would ask me which profile to use?

That's ... the current behaviour? At least on Debian Firefox ESR 115, and also on all versions I remember to have used.

Re: Firefox profiles: Private, focused spaces for all the ways you browse

#124

Post by freehorse »

bluebarbet wrote: post #11

Profiles are great. I've used them for years. Much better than containers, which separate your data sort-of-but-not-quite. A profile folder has everything . You can copy it, back it up, plug it into a completely new Firefox installation later. That portability is a killer feature, but scriptability needs to be improved. The manual says you can do: >`firefox --profile Start with profile at ` But that will not work as…

> Much better than containers, which separate your data sort-of-but-not-quite

What is better depends on the use case. For me, containers are magic, because I can be logged into eg 2-3 different microsoft accounts simultaneously in the same window. With profiles or other browsers I would need to open a different window for each, which would be unnecessary and impractical. This is extremely convenient for me, containers is the feature I cannot currently browse without. Sometimes "separate your data sort-of-but-not-quite" may be exactly what you may need.

Re: Firefox profiles: Private, focused spaces for all the ways you browse

#125

Post by freehorse »

They should make it a bit more clear they added features that were not there before and what, as it is not clear to me what has changed from before that I tried using them. Apparently it seems better now, but no wonder most commenters do not realise this is about some new features not about the old.

Re: Firefox profiles: Private, focused spaces for all the ways you browse

#126

Post by 1718627440 »

goku12 wrote: post #76

Here is my wishlist with respect to browser profiles and containers. While the chances that I'll get them are low, I hope it inspires people to think bigger a bit more. It may be too hard on the current generation of web engines, but perhaps the next generation can plan better in advance. We're doing profiles and containers wrong. There are numerous other free software that demonstrate better examples. Why do we have…

> We're doing profiles and containers wrong. There are numerous other free software that demonstrate better examples.

Profiles are about separating Settings and user history, not for security isolation. If you want to do that use the OS?

> Today we have full-window pages with multiple pages supported by tabs. But those who use browsers for anything serious, besides watching cat videos or doom scrolling on social media know how frustrating it is to not be able to browse two pages side-by-side.

Why should the browser implement a window manager, when the window manager already exists? What stops you from putting two tabs side-by-side right now?

> But the window layout shouldn't stop there. Currently, the menu bars, tab bar/sidebar, toolbars, address bar etc consume too much space.

You know, that you can put the menubar into the OS panel?

Re: Firefox profiles: Private, focused spaces for all the ways you browse

#127

Post by 1718627440 »

celsoazevedo wrote: post #52
xenophonf wrote: post #42

Firefox profiles suck. Their UX is so bad. Containers are better but still have their issues. I use Containerise plus Cookie AutoDelete plus Temporary Containers to give me what is effectively per-tab private browsing. The major downside is that I have to copy containers.json (which enumerates all of the dedicated containers I have defined, e.g., for Facebook), my Containerise rules (which automatically puts certain…

> Firefox profiles suck. Their UX is so bad. That's what these changes aim to fix. You're getting a Chromium-like profile switcher/manager. > Containers are better Containers are very good... for container stuff. Profiles allow us to have different bookmarks, settings, extensions, themes, etc. Different tools for different jobs. I use both!

What are you all talking about? What is wrong with the existing ProfileManager?

Re: Firefox profiles: Private, focused spaces for all the ways you browse

#128

Post by 1718627440 »

spiffyk wrote: post #122
1718627440 wrote: post #113

How does that differ from the existing profiles? Firefox has had profiles for decades.

This is introducing a friendlier profile management GUI for non-power-users, I believe.

What is the problem with the current ProfileManager?

Re: Firefox profiles: Private, focused spaces for all the ways you browse

#129

Post by xeonmc »

Brybry wrote: post #41
bluebarbet wrote: post #11

Profiles are great. I've used them for years. Much better than containers, which separate your data sort-of-but-not-quite. A profile folder has everything . You can copy it, back it up, plug it into a completely new Firefox installation later. That portability is a killer feature, but scriptability needs to be improved. The manual says you can do: >`firefox --profile Start with profile at ` But that will not work as…

In Windows 10 I have shortcuts pinned to my taskbar that are just > ...firefox.exe" -P "profilename" and then `taskbar.grouping.useprofile true` so only windows from the same profile are grouped together and some custom recolored Firefox icons for those pinned shortcuts and custom per-profile userChrome.css styling (#TabsToolbar background-color) for easy visual differentiation of a window's profile. For Windows 10,…

Is there a command line flag that opens the url in a chromeless window for Firefox, so that it works like a PWA?

Re: Firefox profiles: Private, focused spaces for all the ways you browse

#130

Post by icf80 »

1718627440 wrote: post #128
spiffyk wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is introducing a friendlier profile management GUI for non-power-users, I believe.

What is the problem with the current ProfileManager?

the new profile UI will not show you the old ones!
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