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.
Why would I use this when I have Firefox containers?
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
So… about:profiles is what then ‽‽
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 already use profiles in Firefox but this looks a much better interface for managing them.
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.
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.
Just need it on mobile.
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.
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 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.
I have two separate shortcuts, I just set it so that one shortcut opens one profile and the other the other profile.
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.
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.
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 :)
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.
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.
Uhm … is this perhaps for the android browser then?
The desktop browser has had this for a long long time, though in recent builds a bit hidden. I still use various profiles, very handy.
No, this is to make the desktop browser profiles work more like Chrome.
I wish there was a feature like this on YouTube. I’d love a profile for watching educational videos, a profile for feeding me cool videos when I’m high, and a profile for when my kids want to watch stuff. I’m tired of vibing and listening to music videos only to get hit with a language learning podcast or Disney songs.
It’s insane that they have an incognito mode that still serves up ads even though I have premium.
I agree, I would love seperate “recommendation profiles” so like if I am in the mood for music, swap to music, if I want education, I can swap to that, feeling lets play? swap to gaming, horror could be creepypasta or horror games.
All under the same parent account so the premium status could apply while google would still be able to leech data off the main profile, the only difference is the curated content given is based off the profile.
edit: HOLY CRAP APPARENTLY THIS EXISTS ALREADY; you just need to make a sub channel under your parent account and the benefits share. I didn’t realize recommendations were isolated with that.
I had no idea until I read Katy’s comment, it’s a game changer
Did you try to achieve this with containerized tabs?
You can create different accounts under different email addresses.
Once you’re logged in, you can switch between accounts from the dropdown menu.
I’ve done this in the past to separate French YouTube recs from English ones.
I did this as well but the other accounts get ads because the premium only applies to my first account. Terrible user experience and Google go hand in hand
They do have categories and I’ve tried to put different channels in different categories, but the thing is just so hard to use I gave up.
It’s quite surprising how bad Google can be at UX.
It really is wild how a company can be so massive yet unable to do basic UI. I got a notification that someone replied to a YouTube comment I made so I clicked the notification and it opened up YouTube’s landing page. I tried to find notifications and couldn’t so instead I tried to find a page that has my comment history.
I had to look it up and apparently you can’t even find it on YouTube, you have to go to a separate website, my activity.google.com.
