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by dcarmo 2292 days ago
I wish Firefox had a good multi-account support like Chrome has. That, and the fact that iOS 14 might allow to set your default browser would make me move to use Firefox everywhere.
5 comments

Read the top comment regarding Containers. I think FF has the BEST multi-account support. Just login to different accounts using different containers. Your cookies/logins in one are isolated from the others. Currently have three Gmail accounts open and pinned in multiple containers.
Multi-account works great with containers, far superior to chrome.

What you mean is probably multi-profile. I have never used that with chrome, but with FF I can go to about:profiles to open a new one or (according to a quick search) have a shortcut to the profile switcher or to a specific profile. What does Chrome do better?

> What does Chrome do better?

I haven't used Chrome in a long time, but this is the primary major thing I miss from it (possibly the only thing).

E.g. we have a family computer that my spouse and I use. I have set up separate profiles for us and forced Firefox to ask which profile to use on launch. But this means that if she has the browser open and has stepped away, I can't just open a new window, switch to my profile, and do things under it. I have to fully quit the browser and restart it.

If I remember correctly, with Chrome the profile was essentially tied to the logged in account and it was possible to have multiple windows open to different accounts. With Firefox you need to sign out of a Sync account before logging in to another.

> I have to fully quit the browser and restart it.

You can use about:profiles and click the "Launch profile in new browser" button for the relevant profile. The UI is not amazing, and I would not recommend it to a non-techie given all the noise in it, but it does work....

Out of curiosity, why not have another user account on the computer? Windows is pretty simple to move between user accounts as is Linux and, although I haven't use macOS recently enough to comment, it was pretty easy the last time I did.

I'm sure our use cases are different but I'd like to understand yours better.

Ya know, this never even crossed my mind. Hah. Good point.
You can just make a shortcut to run `firefox --no-remote" --profile foo`. Poor UX, but the feature works.
Interesting. What exactly does the `--no-remote` command do? I couldn't find any real detailed info about from a quick search.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Command_Lin...

Here's a longer explanation. https://www.brycevandyk.com/dissecting-firefoxs-no-remote-op... By default, Firefox looks for an already running instance and attaches to it, opening a new window in the existing session. --no-remote disables that connecting behavior.
By default if the browser is running, the command you run will use RPC to pass your instructions to this browser. This maybe isn't what a seasoned Unix person would expect software to do but it matches expectations from many GUI users.

The --no-remote flag tells Firefox that no, you really want another Firefox.

With the new(ish) Containers feature, you can have different accounts in different tabs. They are color-coded so you can tell which container each tab is in. Just long-press or right-click the New Tab button to choose which container the new tab opens under. So e.g. you could log in to Twitter in your container, open a new tab in her container, and log in to a different Twitter account there.
Containers are a vastly superior experience to profiles, at least for my use. I still have all my history, bookmarks etc., just different cookies&stuff for the things I open in the various containers I use.
I wish Firefox on iOS had ad-blocker - that's the only thing preventing me from switching on my iPhone.
On iOS, all the browsers share the Content Blockers you install and enable in Settings (system wide). Install Firefox Focus (a single tab browser), which comes with its own Content Blocker.
Obligatory "Firefox on iOS isn't really Firefox, as iOS App Store rules ban browser engines" reply. ALL iOS browsers are basically just skins on top of Safari's WebKit.

See 2.5.6 here - https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/

An off topic question, but I would appreciate feedback: I have tried the DuckDuckGo browser on my iPad, and it seems like it provides good privacy features even though it is layered on WebKit. Any opinions of DuckDuckGo vs. Firefox on iOS?