[alexis_fr]

Atlassian is not the only one who wrecked login by implementing SSO across all their instances.

I really don’t recommend using in-app dual logins (for example Gmail’s dual login), and stick to using separate Chrome profiles or Firefox profiles, so that none of the cookies are shared. Even with that, I’ve had surprises with my mobile phone number being the only shared information between two Google Ads accounts, and Google mixing my data, but avoiding sharing cookies is really important.

That is also what I recommend my employees. « You can use Facebook or Youtube at work, but not in the same Chrome profile. »

[shock]

> separate Chrome profiles or Firefox profiles, so that none of the cookies are shared.

You don't need separate Firefox profiles for that, you can use Firefox containers.

[znpy]

> You don't need separate Firefox profiles for that, you can use Firefox containers.

Firefox Containers are awful.

Only firefox profiles can give you true separation.

It would have been better if Mozilla had added a better interface to profiles.

[ssorallen]

> It would have been better if Mozilla had added a better interface to profiles.

Profiles in Chrome and their ease of use (Cmd+Shift+M to open a new window in a different profile) is the primary reason I still use Chrome over Firefox. I have a Personal, a Work, and a Development profile. The development profile is where I install dev extensions like React Devtools, Redux Devtools, etc. because they require full access to all sites in order to function. I don’t do regular web browsing with devtools installed. These tools seem trustworthy, but why risk giving them access to everything I do on the web?

I’ve tried Firefox Containers and can’t find the same power and ease of use Chrome Profiles have.

[nilsandrey]

I see your point now, I was preferring containers because I have this scenario where I want the data separation it provides without the need of reinstalling add-ons, especially on a temporal container/profile. The shared window can be nice on some particular moments where I don't need to have a lot of pages opened and are continuously changing from tab to tab.

Thinking over about you said, now I think I like things from the two worlds, maybe better interface to containers or even better UI for profiles, with options to overcome the containers (maybe should be better for the average user instead of having both).

For the time being, I prefer to have both options (don't have it now) but I think both can be improved.

[alexis_fr]

Upside of Chrome profiles: Use a bright red theme for prod sysadmin profile, and blue for work. So you never type « p... » on your work profile by mistake... Don’t laugh, usage is widespread.

[ssorallen]

I do exactly this too: I have 3 distinctly different themes for the three profiles I use. A split second glance at the color of the tab bar informs me which profile I'm working with.

[znpy]

That might work well with you but Chrome is not free software nor open source.

One might argue that chromium is, but in my opinion using chromium only enforces google chrome

[ssorallen]

Free and open source is tangential to my point? I was commenting on the functionality of Chrome Profiles vs. Firefox Profiles + Containers.

[omnimus]

Why are Containers awful? Its great i use it all the time for this purpose.

[diggan]

I'm not znpy so I don't know why they don't like containers.

But I prefer profiles myself, as I have different extensions in different profiles and I get the two completely separate instances of Firefox, while containers are just separate tabs instead.

I don't think containers are awful though, they are just less useful for my use case than profiles.

[cssinate]

I sometimes have issues with the profiles too though. If I have both profiles running concurrently and I click a link from a different application, I get an error that "Firefox is already running" and it freezes up the window with my primary profile.

Do you ever experience that?

[diggan]

Strange, haven't had that issue myself, running firefox-75.0-1 on Arch Linux. You probably should report that to Mozilla, if you can.

[dhimes]

Thanks for this. I've been naively using containers. Yes, a UI for profiles would be awesome- we've been wanting that for a long time.

[diggan]

You can either start firefox with `-P` to the profile chooser when starting firefox, or navigate to `about:profiles` to show the UI for managing them.

Would allow greater discovery if this `about:profiles` page was exposed somewhere in preferences, but at least there is something I guess.

[dhimes]

I just almost always start firefox with a mouse click- even on fluxbox :/

[the_pwner224]

$ cd ~/.local/share/applications

$ cp /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop .

$ vim firefox.desktop

Add -P onto the end of the 'Exec' line. Now your click button for firefox will open the profile manager.

[diggan]

If you dig around, there is probably a value in `about:config` that lets you tell firefox to always show the profile selector first. Otherwise, add `-P` to the argument fields in your desktop shortcut.

[znpy]

thanks! I didn't know about `about:profiles` !

[usr1106]

> Firefox Containers are awful.

Any details, how do they leak?

> Only firefox profiles can give you true separation

I don't think they would help a lot against fingerprinting. (I have no idea how commonly used fingerprinting is at the moment.)

[WorldMaker]

> Any details, how do they leak?

Extensions, mostly. You have to be real careful which extensions you install because extensions run at the window level (mostly) rather than the container level and see across/through containers.

Also things like auto-fill (including password suggestions); if you like that being very specific to context, then you'd want different profiles rather than containers.

I've found I've been using a mixture of profiles and containers, myself, to balance ease of access (containers are fast to launch and can auto-launch per specific sites) versus better extension control and auto-fill/etc separation.

(ETA: As for finger-printing, both containers and profiles are equal on the most common finger-printing: cookies and localStorage. Neither protects you well from IP Address tracking, which is a growing concern, but not the approach of at least the big players like Google or Facebook, yet.)

[Deebster]

> Firefox Containers are awful

Do you have any sources or reasons for this condemnation?

[diggan]

True, but by using profiles you don't need any extra extensions, it comes built-in in both Chrome and Firefox, you can simply start it with providing the `--profile <path>` flag. Correct me if I'm wrong, but some IT environments also lock down installing extensions from addons.mozilla.org, so the profiles tip would be applicable to more people.

[znpy]

You can just use --profile <name> -- with only the name of the profile.

Also, you can backup/restore/move profiles independently of each other.

Also, you can have different network settings for different profiles (not sure you can do that with containers).

For example I have a profile whose network connections are such that traffic is forwarded through a socks proxy (implemented via ssh). That's basically an ultra-simple vpn. I can then (via a script) automatically launch the tunnel open firefox with the appropriate profile and then exit firefox and gracefully stopping my tunnel.

[Kaze404]

Firefox Containers are a native feature now.

[diggan]

I remember it used to be a native feature but I'm fairly certain they split it out into a separate addon after a while. Or did they move it back into core?

[the8472]

The basic functionality is in the core. (about:preferences -> search for "container"). But for better UI there is an extension.

[WorldMaker]

Partly because Mozilla is continuing to iterate/experiment on the container UI and leaving that to extensions is a way to keep that laboratory open. They seem worried the UI may be too confusing if it was on by default for a lot of users. (Like the era decades ago when -ProfileManager was on-by-default in some installs.)

Mozilla even has two official extensions, trying to explore the space of ease of use/user expectations. In addition to the main multi-container extension they offer Facebook Container which is an extension designed to be more entry level but for folks worried about privacy. (It does what it says on a tin, creates only one additional container, names it Facebook, and automatically moves all Facebook tabs and pretty much only Facebook tabs into it.)

[syshum]

The problem I have with profiles is it is Browser Wide,

I like to have several Container Tabs open all logged in to different accounts at the same time

[KingOfCoders]

We had the same with Amazon, we created a new Amazon account but shared the telephone number. Support sent emails to the first account concerning the second account.

[sneak]

I have stopped giving out phone numbers to services. I can get throwaway email addresses (eg anonaddy.me, which is great) but burner numbers incur a significant time and cost, so I just don’t use services that demand one now.

Google Accounts fall into this category these days. Possible I’ll deprecate my use of those, as I don’t use gmail or drive any longer.

[StreamBright]

I had to use GDPR to force them to delete one of my accounts because my account got stuck in the registration where I could not complete the registration and could not delete the registration either. First time I used GDPR for anything. Support did not understand the situation, I waked through them the issue with screenshots, nothing.