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by roldie 1015 days ago
A counter anecdote is that I have the exact opposite use case. I don't share my computer with other users, so I've never needed something like profiles. Firefox containers are great for keeping different sites, especially those notorious for tracking (e.g. Amazon, Google, LinkedIn) completely isolated from each other or from general browsing. Plus, the extension that allows for creating temporary containers is great for one-off visits to e-commerce sites without needing to switch to a new private/incognito window. I'm not sure I've ever wanted my extensions isolated by container/profile, that seems like it would hinder productivity. Same for history. It's great having all my history commingled, especially if I want to find something from 30 tabs ago.
1 comments
bad_user 1015 days ago
> Firefox containers are great for keeping different sites, especially those notorious for tracking (e.g. Amazon, Google, LinkedIn) completely isolated from each other or from general browsing.

That was exactly my point; you're using Firefox's containers for privacy, and it actually doesn't help, at least since they deployed "Total Cookie Protection" by default:

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-rolls-o...

Note that other browsers have implemented similar strategies, notably Safari and Brave:

https://brave.com/privacy-updates/7-ephemeral-storage/

Also, blocking 3rd party cookies in Chrome is decent enough, as Chrome also does cache and network partitioning. The problem with blocking 3rd party cookies is that it breaks some websites, which is why something like "Total Cookie Protection" is a better strategy.

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danShumway 1014 days ago
> That was exactly my point; you're using Firefox's containers for privacy, and it actually doesn't help, at least since they deployed "Total Cookie Protection" by default:

It does. Total cookie protection isolates per-site. What containers allow is for you to say, open a single review site in two different containers, and click on an Amazon link on that review site and not have the same Amazon cookies shared when you do so. It also allows you to very easily set per-site clearing settings for those 3rd-party cookies rather than relying on more cumbersome browser settings.

Total cookie isolation is a great feature but it's a very passive feature with very defined boundaries. Yes, your FB tracking cookies get isolated to the 3rd-party site requesting them. But when do those cookies get cleared, how do they get shared when browsing the same site? It's not just about saying "I want multiple Facbook logins at the same time", it's also about saying "I want this browsing session to be isolated even if I'm revisiting a site that has 1st-party cookies set, even if I'm loading 3rd-party cookies via a domain I've already visited."

By the logic you're supposing, private browsing windows themselves didn't have a purpose after total cookie protection was launched. But being able to fully segment site data by an arbitrary boundary beyond just domain boundaries is useful, and being able to set custom rules including (as this extension demonstrates) even custom proxy rules for how data within that boundary gets treated is even more useful.

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