uhhh, this has been a thing for a long time already. I don’t know whats new here. put about:profiles in your url bar for anyone uses a firefox based browser.
The UI was clearly not user friendly.
Until it gets a proper Guest mode like Chrome (which is basically a private window without the shame of using one), the only thing they did is add a cute little interface to an ancient feature.
Why would I use this when I have Firefox containers?
separate settings, separate addons, separate about prefs. also for when the PC is used by more than one person but there is only one user account
Multiple accounts on the same websites with different cookies for each one.
That’s what containers do.
The screeshots shows functionality that the current profile/profile launch UI already has. Choose, create, ask on startup.
Right now it’s hidden behind a startup parameter. But honestly, I would prefer a UI between the current one and the new one. That screenshot looks like it would reduce usability through big spacing and suboptimal alignment. At least judging by my preferences.
I guess adding a picture is nice. But does it have to be that huge and prominent?
This only works on Windows. For Macs and maybe Linux, you have to run this command to bring up a different profile:
/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -p
As best I can tell, there’s no way to make this into a shortcut that you could just click on. This change will be good and allow me to launch them without invoking that command in terminal several times after rebooting my computer.
You’ve always been able to navigate to
about:profilesas wellOn Windows, I had two shortcuts–one each for a profile. It became my workflow and annoyed me when I couldn’t do that on a Mac. I didn’t always want my work profile to open by mistake, check into systems, etc. when I only wanted the home one, for instance.
In Windows it’s the same. Though the parameter is
-P(uppercase) not-p. That’s why the comment said “it’s hidden behind a startup parameter”.As best I can tell, there’s no way to make this into a shortcut that you could just click on.
I dont know about Mac, but in Linux you can just manually make a
.desktopfile to have as a shortcut to callfirefox -P, or better a shortcut to a specific profile withfirefox -P <profile>. Though what I often do is keep a bookmark toabout:profilesand open a new window from there.I might try this next time I launch. Just launch one, go into profiles, and launch the second one.
Finally
Part of Chrome since >7 years?It was part of Firefox before Chrome was even a thing.
Many people aren’t aware of
firefox -Pand/orabout:profiles… but it’s one of the oldest features in firefox.I am.
It’s annoying not just having a dedicated button like, for example, chrome has to manage profiles.
Don’t use chrome. Google is an evil company now.
Never said I am using Chrome ;)
I’ve said that phrase many times in the past. I don’t anymore and I don’t let my friends either :)
Ironically, in the article it’s pictured running on Windows, which now has a built-in mechanic for automatically screen shotting everything you do and keeping records.
Yay.
So… about:profiles is what then ‽‽
I already use profiles in Firefox but this looks a much better interface for managing them.
tried tab groups, waste of time. trying to save my pinned tabs from disappearing. have to avoid closing single tab windows last. opens on the single tab and pins are lost. keep about 20 pinned in one window.
pins are attached to the specific window. if you close the windows one by one it trashes them. use the quit function in the menu on the right, that it does not trash the windows, each of them will reopen next timealong with the pins
You can usually find recently closed windows in history.
Finally! Profile management is easily the worst feature in firefox
Agreed, it is tiring to type about:profiles each time, and then it auto corrects it to about:profiling instead.
What do profiles do that I can’t do with multi account containers?
I can let my kids play on my computer without them screwing up my personal browser history or getting into any of my accounts without having to teach them how to use yet another extension.
Vivaldi has a great example of profile management where I can literally create a desktop shortcut for each person that uses my computer, complete with their name, and it’s their own separate internet profile.
Yes, I’m aware I could solve this problem by using multiple user profiles on my computer, but the overhead and the amount of management would also be a massive headache. It is just far easier to do this.
have 4 default profiles. on latest, ‘Profile: default-release-3’
about:profiles
ITT: People who only use Windows and don’t realize that FF works differently on other systems.
I think containers (that Firefox already has) are a much better way to handle this. Profiles, art least the way they are implemented on chrome, feels like a massive downgrade.
It depends on how much separation you need. If you want different bookmarks, history, or settings per, then I believe you need profiles to make that happen.
You can use containers all you want, just don’t create another profile and you’re golden.
This is what I do now, just trying to figure out why ff keeps spending time on profiles. Do they have any advantages over containers?
because it’s useful for people who are not you
For highly technical users containers are going to do everything we need.
For non technical users who need separation, profiles are a standard known framework.
My non technical spouse prefers profile to separate work and personal. She uses different themes for each profile so it is very obvious which is which.
Also one of the extensions she likes interferes with a work site she is required to use. She has that extension installed in the personal profile but not work profile.
I thought it had had that for twenty years?
Yeah I don’t know why profiles itself are being mentioned as a new thing. What’s new is the more convenient interface for them
you don’t like about:profiles?
You can add -P to the shortcut to launch straight to the profile manager. Have to have no running instances when you do though.
Just need it on mobile.
Show of Hands:
Who’s heard of “about:profiles”?
🦗🦗🦗
Wait till you hear about:about
🤯
I use it so much I have the tab pinned
Been using it for years.
Been using multi account containers [1] for a couple weeks, complete with per-tab-SSL vpns.
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/
I use them all the time, they’re great. I learned about it from another random Lemmy comment
I’ve been using it for years, too. I have it on my bookmarks bar, but this will certainly be better, I’d think.
I knew about the containers, which I’ve been using for a long time now. How is this different?
Profiles can have separate settings which is nice. I heavily use tab containers, but the site used for online grad school requires 3rd party cookies for any of the embedded content to work. So I have a separate school profile that has 3rd party cookies enabled.
You can have a whole other instance of Firefox with different settings, extensions, themes, logins, bookmarks, history…
It’s really handy imo to have a school/work profile with relevant bookmarks, history, extensions and then have a separate personal profile for all my personal shizz. Not to mention not having my personal stuff pop up in my school/work profile to avoid embarrassing moments and not having work shit annoy me on my personal profile.
Ohhh ok yeah that makes sense. Now I’m thinking about if I want to use it… hmm
I want to use it but I keep forgetting it exists. Something like this should just be accessible via button in the UI so no-one misses it
I don’t find it or using the profile manager as convenient as what Chrome has
I think they are just making a ui to manage it natively.
firefox -p was also an UI. Not as fancy as this one.
Also
about:profilesif it’s already running
I tried it during covid when wfh started. I found it really annoying to switch between personal and work profiles. I prefer the chrome way of asking which profile each time I click the icon or having two separate icons.
I have two separate shortcuts, I just set it so that one shortcut opens one profile and the other the other profile.
Just add -P to Firefox launch flags once and then selected “prompt me everytime”. This also has been true for rlike 20 years.
Or just -P “profilename” to launch that profile directly from a shortcut.
You can have as many running simultaneously as you’d want.
it’s slightly different; before to have two profiles open at the same time you had to add no-remote and it was still quirky; now its much more streamlines and background links outside of firefox will open in whichever profile has focus.
Zen has “workspaces”, which I don’t get at all. Profiles seems like too much, containers works fine for me.
Crazy all the useless nonsense Mozilla has room for, since they helped kill RSS by dropping browser UI support for it for “simplification”. It was the same rationale for removing live bookmarks and Shift+Enter to add .net to an address and Ctrl+Shift+Enter for .org.
You can assign containers to workspaces so that you can use work stuff one workspace, gaming stuff in one and so on.
