Firefox Containers Preview • Hacker News Board

Re: Firefox Containers Preview

#61

Post by Walf » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 5:26 AM UTC

bityard wrote: post #33

pentagrama wrote: post #12

I’ve been using Firefox Containers for years through Mozilla’s Multi-Account Containers extension.[1] Now that container management is available directly in Firefox, I’d prefer to use the native implementation if possible. Mozilla notes that the extension still adds some functionality: > “Installing the Multi-Account Containers extension developed by Mozilla provides a few benefits on top of the native container func…

> site-specific container assignments This is (or was, before I switched to Vivaldi) the killer feature of Firefox containers for me. I could banish certain tracking-heavy sites to their own containers so that they could only track where I've been on their own properties and not across the whole web. (Without having to remember to switch to their containers beforehand.) So I guess if I go back to Firefox, I'll still…

For me, this is almost an anti-feature. I still use it for a few sites, but the real killer feature of containers is that it becomes a breeze to use the same service with different accounts & identities, without logging in and out, and no shared state. Pinning a site to a container breaks that.

Re: Firefox Containers Preview

#62

Post by _rwo » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 6:34 AM UTC

em-bee wrote: post #53

lukeschlather wrote: post #37

I use profiles for this, I wonder what the tradeoffs are between the two approaches. I've actually been thinking about building some tools to make it easier to create and manage profiles on the fly. For me I really think profiles are better since the boundaries are harder - there's no worry about accidentally hitting the "log in with Google" button and clearly identifying myself to a site or similar, because I read t…

the benefit of containers is that they are all in the same browser. all your settings, extensions, remembered passwords, etc. apply to all containers and you can more easily reopen a site in a different container. i don't get the login with google problem. you would be logged in in one container and not in any of the others. unless you open a site in your "google container", nothing will happen. the container where y…

> the benefit of containers is that they are all in the same browser. all your settings, extensions, remembered passwords (...)

YMMV that's exactly the downside of containers for me xD

Since Firefox (nightly) introduced multi profiles support I didn't looked back - requires some initial setup as you pretty much need to configure browser from scratch, but that full separation works way better for me - especially that you can e.g. configure same plugin in slightly different way per profile (ad blockers, password managers etc.); and somehow under macos when I have currently active profile and I click on some links (e.g. in slack) it picks up that active profile correctly

Re: Firefox Containers Preview

#63

Post by Izkata » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 9:41 AM UTC

em-bee wrote: post #54

Izkata wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't use Nightly and I've been using containers for I think that long without any extension for it. Edit: looks like I enabled them manually and couldn't remember/find it, it's in about:config under the name "privacy.userContext" instead of "containers".

as far as i remember, the low level container functionality was always in the core browser. what the extension adds is the UI to manage containers. with this change it appears the UI is merged back into the core browser.

It's been there just as long, turn it on with "privacy.userContext.ui.enabled" and manage them at "about:preferences#containers"

The addons added extra functionality but everything they've listed in this announcement is already there. Sounds like they're just flipping these two flags by default.

Re: Firefox Containers Preview

#64

Post by SwiftyBug » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 12:52 PM UTC

Multi-account containers is the main reason why I stick to Firefox. Safari and Chrome also have container features (more like profiles, really), but they don't work the same: you open tabs in a separate profile and you can't have tabs, each in a different container, side by side.

Re: Firefox Containers Preview

#65

Post by pantulis » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 2:22 PM UTC

molticrystal wrote: post #57

Extensions per container would be a great addition if they don't already have that planned or available. Sometimes an extensions for privacy or security interferes with a website and if I could fork my base enabled extensions then disable a few for just that site it could keep things more compact and organized instead of having to clone a profile for every website with issues.

The "per container" number of features that come to mind is never ending. For example, I'd love to have something like Safari's "Profile bookmarks" that allow you to set a different subset of your global bookmarks as the root of your bookmark bar per profile. This is insanely useful.

Re: Firefox Containers Preview

#66

Post by pantulis » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 2:59 PM UTC

pantulis wrote: post #65

molticrystal wrote: post #57

Extensions per container would be a great addition if they don't already have that planned or available. Sometimes an extensions for privacy or security interferes with a website and if I could fork my base enabled extensions then disable a few for just that site it could keep things more compact and organized instead of having to clone a profile for every website with issues.

The "per container" number of features that come to mind is never ending. For example, I'd love to have something like Safari's "Profile bookmarks" that allow you to set a different subset of your global bookmarks as the root of your bookmark bar per profile. This is insanely useful.

Well it came to me that I could write that as an extension with Claude Code. And it's showing good progress.

Re: Firefox Containers Preview

#67

Post by WorldMaker » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 5:25 PM UTC

Walf wrote: post #61

bityard wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> site-specific container assignments This is (or was, before I switched to Vivaldi) the killer feature of Firefox containers for me. I could banish certain tracking-heavy sites to their own containers so that they could only track where I've been on their own properties and not across the whole web. (Without having to remember to switch to their containers beforehand.) So I guess if I go back to Firefox, I'll still…

For me, this is almost an anti-feature. I still use it for a few sites, but the real killer feature of containers is that it becomes a breeze to use the same service with different accounts & identities, without logging in and out, and no shared state. Pinning a site to a container breaks that.

They are definitely orthogonal use cases. I find I prefer Profiles for different accounts/identities more than Containers (including profiles being very different windows of Firefox reducing confusion of which identity I'm looking at). Containers I like using for those hard privacy walls of pinned sites to avoid more "personalized" ads. But the flexibility exists to mix and match and use Containers and Profiles for either/both use cases. I don't think there's a "wrong way" to use them, just your personal preferred way.

Re: Firefox Containers Preview

#68

Post by WorldMaker » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

toss1 wrote: post #36

jillesvangurp wrote: post #32

Good that they are integrating that into the main browser. For me the big use case is having different Google accounts active in one window. Work and private. And when I was doing freelance projects, I sometimes had 3 or 4 different Google accounts active. Plus assorted stuff tied to those accounts. Using different colors for each makes it easy to tell apart the tabs. Another use case is if you are testing the same a…

If seems this should make obsolete the setup of having a separate computer (e.g., old laptop) to isolate Facebook properties, or am I missing something where a separate machine would be advantageous? (I avoid FB like the plague but may need to use it for some biz uses where they effectively host too large a share of the intended market)

This has been one of my use cases for the Multi-Account Containers extension for some time now. It's actually such a motivating use case that one of Firefox explorations into a "simpler" focused UX alternative to the Multi-Account Container extension is called "Facebook Container" and does only that, isolate Facebook, specifically into its own Container.

As noted, it can't defeat all forms of device fingerprinting, but it does defeat cookie tracking.

Re: Firefox Containers Preview

#69

Post by WorldMaker » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 5:47 PM UTC

lukeschlather wrote: post #37

I use profiles for this, I wonder what the tradeoffs are between the two approaches. I've actually been thinking about building some tools to make it easier to create and manage profiles on the fly. For me I really think profiles are better since the boundaries are harder - there's no worry about accidentally hitting the "log in with Google" button and clearly identifying myself to a site or similar, because I read t…

Profiles and Containers are a bit of a peanut butter and jelly situation. There's uses for both separately, there's a strong intersection of what they do well that you use either for (topping a slice of toast), and then together they also can make a beautiful sandwich.

Profiles form very different windows. You can decorate them to make them obvious at a glance which Profile is which. Up until recent Profile improvements, switching between them and managing them used to be a lot of work, including managing which one was the default for links from other applications.

Containers are tabs in a shared window. They get marked with a subtle color bar (the colors you choose for each container) and that's mostly it, they otherwise "blend in" to the same shared window. Reopening tabs in a different container is easy. Opening new tabs in a different container is easy. Containers share a few more things than Profiles do (but are still isolated in important ways such as cookies).

I have every site that needs my Google account pinned to always open in a specific container. The boundary is hard where I need it (the privacy protections) but soft for make workflows easier. If I find a YouTube embed in the wild somewhere that needs a login for one of the many restrictive reasons some do, I just click the normal link (or middle click for new tab) and YouTube opens in my Google container automatically. I don't need to copy paste between windows (or use Sync's sometimes slow tab sync engine). If I accidental hit a "log in with Google" button it opens up in the Google container and I know something is wrong because I don't expect random other websites in that container. (Relatedly, I finally installed uBlock Origin not to get rid of ads, but solely to get rid of that awful annoying content-obscuring popup for Google login on sites like Medium. I feel like there should be far more backlash on Google for being a bad actor doing that.)

I also use Profiles for alternate identities, things where a very different looking window are helpful to know I'm in the right place. Containers and Profiles are useful together.

Re: Firefox Containers Preview

#70

Post by Walf » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 12:30 AM UTC

WorldMaker wrote: post #67

Walf wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, this is almost an anti-feature. I still use it for a few sites, but the real killer feature of containers is that it becomes a breeze to use the same service with different accounts & identities, without logging in and out, and no shared state. Pinning a site to a container breaks that.

They are definitely orthogonal use cases. I find I prefer Profiles for different accounts/identities more than Containers (including profiles being very different windows of Firefox reducing confusion of which identity I'm looking at). Containers I like using for those hard privacy walls of pinned sites to avoid more "personalized" ads. But the flexibility exists to mix and match and use Containers and Profiles for e…

Profiles for separation is good for large differences like work and personal life, but I find the lack of shared history, bookmarks, and add-ons to be a pain. Running them simultaneously is annoying because only one profile is considered your default browser, which can receive external links, e.g. from your email client.

There are some good add-ons to pin bookmarks to specific containers, which helps.