this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024
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(On Windows anyway, don't know if different on Linux)

Just wanted to share that as a user of both Firefox and Chrome, it's one thing that makes me hate switching to Firefox. I often need to use two different profiles and the way Firefox does it sucks.

With Chrome I've got two shortcuts (that Chrome creates by activating an option) pinned to my taskbar that look distinct from one another and the instances that I open are combined under their respective profile shortcuts.

With Firefox I need to manually create two shortcuts, assign two distinct icons to differentiate them, change some properties so they open the right profile, pin them and because they're "regular shortcuts" instead of the default Firefox launcher shortcut, when I open the program I end up with a third Firefox icon in my taskbar (it does not open under the shortcut I used, it acts as if I clicked a shortcut on my desktop) where all instances get merged together no matter which profile they're associated with.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (2 children)

What's the goal with the profiles? Is it to keep separate sessions or keep separate accounts with specific bookmarks?

I use Firefox and there are 5 extensions I install every time and two of those are Containers and Tree Style Tab.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I use profiles for using two different SSO accounts with company and customer site that both use the same SSO service.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Then use the Multi Accounts Containers extension, which achieves exactly that. I have work under the default container and my personal accounts in a "personal" container. We both use Google accounts, and it's simple to separate them.

I actually have several:

  1. Work
  2. Personal
  3. Banking
  4. Wife
  5. Kids
  6. Shopping
  7. Games

I do this for a mixture of privacy (my SM can't see my banking or shopping stuff) and convenience (can be logged into personal, work, wife, and kids email accounts simultaneously).

No need for profiles, they're just colors on a tab, and all synced with my single Mozilla account.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/

It's an official extension by Mozilla. And I can confirm that it's amazing, and if multiple website accounts are your use case, it's better than profiles.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Thanks! I was too lazy to link it.

The only use I have for profiles is to have separate sets of extensions, and I need that almost never. I basically just have a blank profile to check if a website issue is due to my extensions (or to run automated tests), and I almost never touch it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Yeah, then you want to utilize the Multi Account Containers extension. And I would recommend the Tree Style Tab alongside it but I know sidebar tabs aren't everyone's thing.

I've been using these two a lot. And I have to have not only multiple O365 profiles, but multiple AWS sessions as well. You can even set the containers up so that certain urls only open in specific containers.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Separate accounts with different bookmarks (both in browser and on websites used by both accounts).

Pretty ridiculous that an extension would be necessary for something that seems like an obvious inclusion to add when adding the possibility to create profiles...