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

blog.mozilla.org

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

#131

Post by jxf »

freehorse wrote: post #124
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, container…

Agree, containers are exactly what I want and I use them all the time. Profiles are too much isolation, like installing separate VMs to run processes in a completely isolated way when something like Docker is fine.

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

#133

Post by 1718627440 »

icf80 wrote: post #130
1718627440 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the problem with the current ProfileManager?

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

Sounds like a problem with the new UI, rather than the old. Will the old show profiles created in the new UI?

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

#134

Post by jobigoud »

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…

A roadblock to what workflow? I just have -p in my firefox shortcut and it shows the profile manager every time I launch. I have 6 profiles I use regularly.

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

#135

Post by jobigoud »

jmakov wrote: post #22

The most useful feature with the worst UX. You have to type about:profiles and then create a new profile. But imagin you now want to move old profiles to a new computer and FF happens to run in a Flatpack. Yeah, much fun

Use -p in your shortcut to firefox and it will show the profile manager on launch, from that you can easily create a new profile or open a new window on existing one.

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

#136

Post by jobigoud »

sorcercode wrote: post #4
happymellon wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that's the only conceivable useful difference over Containers But thats a massive difference. I have work profiles and a personal profile. I have password manager profiles for clients (clients will provide their own PM logins to segregate their access) which are different between them, and having separate profiles is huge. Containers are great, especially for crappy websites that use your sessions for tracking whic…

that's fair (and glad profiles have finally arrived in FF for that reason); personally, i don't use password managers linked to any specific browser but i can understand your use case.

> and glad profiles have finally arrived in FF for that reason

Profiles have been there for years, been using them since at least 2010.

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

#137

Post by jobigoud »

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…

Command prompt, terminal? What are you talking about?

You just have to add the -p in the shortcut properties.

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

#138

Post by jobigoud »

radley wrote: post #31
mrb wrote: post #15

What an extremely confusing blog post! I don't understand why it seemingly presents profiles as a new feature? Firefox has had profiles for years. What the heck is new? I had to click the other link https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-management to understand that this is all about simple UI improvements to make it easier to work with existing profiles. The blog post is more than confusing, it is misleading.…

If it's buried in about:config , it's not a feature, it's just a dev tool. (FWIW, I read that config settings may reset during updates, so at best it's just a temporary patch.) It's like saying you have a responsive website, but only if I edit the layout in the DOM.

I've been using profiles for 15 years and I didn't even know it was in about:config.

Just add -p in your shortcut to start on the profile manager.

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

#139

Post by jobigoud »

jsrcout wrote: post #53

Firefox profiles have worked really well for me for years. I only have two complaints. (a) I like to configure my tools, and setting prefs via user.js has just never really worked - anything there is ignored. Probably it's just because of my particular setup, but I eventually gave up on it. (b) It would be super nice if profiles could [edit:] share common prefs. I certainly don't expect the developers to make it a fe…

The point of profiles is that they are completely isolated from each other, like separate installs, so I don't think starting to share preferences would be great.

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

#140

Post by rcMgD2BwE72F »

throwaway106382 wrote: post #18

I'm happy this is getting a new UI. Always been a pain to use compared to Chrome profiles. Profiles WITH container tabs is pretty killer, dont' think Chrome has anything like this.

I wish I could open another profile in one click and/or one hotkey.I have two profiles (pro and personal) and it isn't possible to open the other with a keyboard shortcut. It's also 3-clicks minimum. Not the best UX they could do…
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