Impressive that theyre finally adding a feature that ive already been using. Makes you wonder how they do that
A feature that has been present for 20 years, but never exposed in the interface. Truly magical.
Quite. It’s how I’ve been watching YouTube ad-free for ages.
I find multi account containers to be the best workflow ergonomics when it comes to separating logins and sessions. I think having the same bookmarks, theme, etc. is actually nice. But I’m sure many really enjoy profile swapping.
Feels super strange to read this. They had profiles for what, decades now? It just required a simple command line flag.
I mean, this is better, but… Yeah.
Oh good, the current profile management is a little bit clunky. Having the option to launch random profiles wherever and whenever would be nice.
This should have been a feature 10 years ago
It was.
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.
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?
Bro is still on Windows 7
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.
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.
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.
Why would I use this when I have Firefox containers?
It’s great having a separate profile for when you tell bbc iPlayer you have a tv licence.
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
I love containers, but it has a pretty frustrating and unfriendly ui. If something else allowed sorting and categorizing, I think that’d be an upgrade.
It’s the same as about:profiles
Just an easy way to separate people’s browsing histories, cookes, bookmarks, etc I guess. And you can have them sync independently as well. For if other people want to use the same computer
Multiple accounts on the same websites with different cookies for each one.
That’s what containers do.
I already use profiles in Firefox but this looks a much better interface for managing them.
So… about:profiles is what then ‽‽
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?
Show of Hands:
Who’s heard of “about:profiles”?
🦗🦗🦗
Wait till you hear about:about
🤯
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 it so much I have the tab pinned
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.
You can add -P to the shortcut to launch straight to the profile manager. Have to have no running instances when you do though.
I knew about the containers, which I’ve been using for a long time now. How is this different?
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
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.
Just need it on mobile.
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.
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.
I have two separate shortcuts, I just set it so that one shortcut opens one profile and the other the other profile.
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.
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.
Ah, makes sense. I don’t mind sharing history and have never used bookmarks or customized any settings.
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?
Different set of cookies, different set of preferences, bookmarks, history, etc. If you need to completely separate two instances, for example one for work and one for everything else, you can only do it with profiles
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.
about:profiles always worked for me. And the profile manager. I don’t need a 3rd ui for switching profiles.
The new one is a much better experience. It works like profiles in chrome now. The old one is still there for you to use if you prefer.
It works like profiles in chrome now.
Is it gonna pop up obnoxiously every time you start the program?
Is it gonna demand that I create a new profile every time I sign in to Google?
Is it gonna pop up obnoxiously every time you start the program?
Your choice, there’s a checkbox to ask every time or not
Is it gonna demand that I create a new profile every time I sign in to Google?
I don’t recall anything like that, though I don’t recall that in Chrome either.
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.
