Simplify the profile usage

Firefox Development
#1

I have a usecase where I would like to use the same browser, and have multiple profiles. But the methods for using multiple profiles are non-discoverable, non-intuative, and also requires flags to be set if I want a work profile and a personal profile running at the same time.

This flag also appears to break other functionality, although I have not tested this. I apologise if there are already feature requests for this, but this is something that I find keeps Chromium sticky for my workflow.

Containers aren’t really a solution as things like my personal password manager cannot touch my work password manager otherwise it places it in my works security jurisdiction, and subject to their audit. There are other reasons, but I wanted to address the containers conversation.

Is this a suitable location to request this usability enhancement, and is this something that matches the Firefox roadmap?

#2

Use cases for multiple profiles come up from time to time on SuMo. For example, a user recently asked how to disable all extensions while using a particular site. The simplest approach was a separate profile (https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1242230).

It is complicated to set up Firefox to run with multiple profiles using desktop shortcuts, especially if you don’t plan to always have the same profile be your primary. It would help many users to take the built-in functionality of about:profiles and expose it through a more usable UI. That’s not a complete solution – for example, the user might not always want to launch a “main” profile first – but it would be a logical evolution of the work done on the in-content profile manager in Firefox 47-63.

I think you mean this:

On Windows, the -no-remote command-line option is used to start an independent instance of Firefox. An instance started with -no-remote can’t be the target of links from external programs. At least one instance of Firefox needs to be started without -no-remote in order for links from other programs to open in Firefox. That could be Firefox running your “personal” profile or your “work” profile.

Ref. Command Line Options on MDN

While I think command-line options are convenient for advanced users, they definitely are not ideal for the average user. I would put the emphasis on exposing the in-product functionality if it were my project.

1 Like
#3

Exactly. Some of this I haven’t tested precisely because it crosses the line where it is a bit too much effort to then implement this across all my devices.

I’m new to this process, how long does it normally take for someone at Mozilla to respond either one way or the other about the likelihood of this being a focus point? Since this is all functionality that has been added to Firefox it appears to be features that are not opposed to the direction they would want to take, as such I would hope it doesn’t get closed as “Not a bug”.

What can I do to help this bubble up? I know profiles are a use-case that a lot of folks that I know on Chrome use, and then it becomes a sticking point when trying to migrate to a superior browser.

#4

Mozilla is missing an opportunity here to catch some users moving away from Chrome. I had to pick a Chromium fork (Brave) because of this.

We can’t expect regular users to install multiple Firefox versions, use scripts, flags or terminal commands to move between profiles. Typing about:profiles every time we want to open a profile isn’t practical either.

I hope something is done to improve Firefox profiles soon. Changing browsers is already a hassle and if something as popular as profiles (at least among advanced Chrome users) doesn’t work well, people will move to another Chromium based browser instead of Firefox.

#5

Yeah this is a glaring issue with firefox compared to chromium browsers… using it with multiple profiles is way too convoluted, especially if you want to create different taskbar shortcuts for each profile.

regular users cannot be expected to mess around with manually creating shortcuts, -no-remote, about:config settings, etc…

not to mention actually getting multiple firefox icons from different profiles to get pinned to the taskbar and functioning as expected is a massive PIA.

This is far more streamlined in literally every chromium based browser.

The most common use case (more common than every now with the increase in WFH) is a Work profile and a Personal profile.

Firefox users always love to say ‘But multi-account containers!!!’… No. Multi-Account containers are not, and will never be suitable for this use case, because we need separate bookmarks, history, etc…

That said, I do think firefox does one thing better than chrome, you can configure one profile as the default to external links (I loathe the chrome behavior where external links open in the last focused profile). So please, copy everything about how chrome does this, except for the external link behavior xD