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Comment by groovecoder | Hacker News Reader

(Someone from Firefox here)

It's a popular request; about as popular as everyone who wants Ctrl+T to open in the default container. :)

So, for our core experience we picked the default behavior that helps maximize the privacy and security protections of Containers.

The good news is that, with the contextualIdentities extension API (exclusive to Firefox!), add-on authors can make their own add-ons to change this behavior. Like Taborama is doing:

https://github.com/kesselborn/taborama

Check out https://developer.mozilla.org/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/cont... for more info on making Container-aware extensions.

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If both are equally popular, it would make sense that this be an easily configurable option in the browser's settings. Favouring one option over the other will inevitably alienate about half the consumers of this awesome feature, which seems like a bit of a waste to me.

It seems like the Firefox team intends to only have what maximises the privacy security protections, and that this extra functionality (hereafter referred to as SameCon, versus the current DefCon) is ideally implemented as an add-on. I'd imagine they're thinking that if a user wants SameCont, that user can just add it as an add-on

I don't think this is the ideal solution, because I'd imagine there are a population of users who just wouldn't consider the possibility that SameCon could Be an add-on. Especially if the community is split roughly down the middle.

I think yours is the ideal solution, making SameCon a configurable option, but having the default option be DefCon. That way, the privacy and security protections are the Default behavior, but a user has the option to change it Built In

Very good point; and you get a +1 for "DefCon"

Just like the option to open in a new tab or window exists (or used to, I have not checked in years)

I agree. If both are popular, it should be a settings option for users to configure.

I think there's a GitHub issue for it too. Please upvote!

Do you know if anyone has suggested this variant:

* CTRL-T opens in DefCon

* Right-clicking a link and selecting "Open in New Tab" opens in SameCon

That's what I would expect the default behavior to be.

Control-click and mouse 3 (middle button / scroll wheel) click already open a new tab in the current container.

But, if you're someone who browses primarily using keyboard shortcuts, this just doesn't cut it.

Got a link?

I went searching and found this issue, which is still open:

https://github.com/mozilla/testpilot-containers/issues/245

    "Opening a new tab from a container window opens a normal tab and not a
    container tab"

I should note that the last comment on that issue was made in July, so I went ahead and commented asking about adding a setting to change the new-tab container inheritance behavior.

https://github.com/mozilla/testpilot-containers/issues/462

They're probably making a conservative change that's easy to back out of, as a default, and then let various extensions experiment and discover how it should really work.

Personally I would want tabs to be in the bozo container by default, unless I explicitly grant the website access to a trusted container, or something.

Extension makers will experiment and Firefox can choose from what gets learned.

Popularity is only one aspect. The only thing split popularity means is that you probably don't want to make the choice with that as your top criterion. Also, people preferring A doesn't automatically mean you'll alienate them by choosing B. Choosing this default because it's more secure, in the face of a split vote, seems like a pretty decent option to me (and I say this as somebody who would've voted for the other option).

I love the container feature but for one thing - the lack of decent shortcuts to open a new tab in a specific container I want.

The keyboard shortcut for the browserAction pop-up is ctrl + . and then you should be able to tab down to whichever container you want.

Thanks for that hint on using "Ctrl ." ! After this key combination, it would still be useful to avoid further navigation using tab and arrow keys and instead have some kind of additional key (like p, w, b, s for personal, work, banking and shopping, respectively...or the first letter of the container name as the shortcut).

Good idea ... file an issue for it? :)

i would prefer that different containers open in separate windows and then every Ctrl+T would open in that window's context. also makes it easy to close all tabs from a single identity,

This is how I use the Qupzilla browser, always in private browsing mode - each window/process is a separate session shared across all contained tabs.

https://qupzilla.com/download

+1 makes most sense.

Mixing different containers in the same window feels a bit awkward to me.

How is that helping the privacy? That option would seem to me to be worse for privacy. If I'm in my personal container and my work container is the default then I want my next tab to open in my personal container.

Or perhaps a different keybinding could give you a choice of containers to open the new tab in.

Unfortunately my suggestion of Ctrl+Shift+T is already taken.

CTRL+clicking the "+" sign will open a new tab on the same container!!

It's a bit awkward although it works, until they get the CTRL+T solved.

God or whatever's big these days, bless you !

Ctrl+Alt+T?

On behalf of Linux users who use this to open Terminal... NOOO! I use this key combo constantly and it would take ages to unlearn it. Ctrl+Alt+T = open a terminal window, dozens of times a day every day.

What if the new tab had a command line inside of it? That would be perfect!

You're an emacs user, aren't you?

Firefox actually has a command line [0], though it's not a terminal. I'm pretty sure there's an extension for a real terminal, though.

[0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/GCLI

I'd really like to be able to follow links from within a container and have them open in the default container (or a specific container if they are pinned).

Example: I contain google.com to a container called "Google", then I perform a Google search. I click a search link, and it opens in the Google container.

Ideally this would still use default. There is the option to right click every link, select "Open in Container" and then pick the default but it's not really optimal for two reasons: 1. Manual effort by the user 2. The link is to a redirector on Google's site, before it forwards to the third party site (though I guess I can live with this, its kind of outside scope of the feature).

So, really, I just want to pin a domain to a container. If I leave that domain, I want it to change containers.

I haven't been able to find a good way to do this automatically, with any of the configurable settings.

I think opening links this way would defeat the purpose of containers (with respect to privacy) because that would allow Google to link containers (most sites contain some JS from G). If this is not what concerns you then I guess some extension could fix it?

Well, that specific example is a confusing type of link, but it would not really expose your privacy any more than having to right click 'Open in a different container' if you have segmented off the Google domain..

EG, if you open it within the Google container, your privacy is most exposed. Whether you have to right click and select 'Open in a different container' when following search or email links, or whether you can have the browser do this automatically, the end result is the same. You're following a Google link, so if they create a special one that tells them which result you clicked on, they still see it and know about it because it's on their domain.

But once you get to that third party domain, you're in a separate container instead of one filled with your own special Adsense cookies.

There are extensions you can use to remove Google's redirect link in their result page.

But this is kind of tangent to what I was trying to get across.

If one has goal is to contain a web property, giving them their own container but then keeping that container open when you leave their site is not really containment.

As all these things, it should be a setting!

And maybe some hints during the second time you open a tab.

As the user-base grows, we'll likely adopt more settings.

We had some original mock-ups with more settings, but they cluttered the introductory UI and seemed to only confuse people new to the concept.

> It's a popular request; about as popular as everyone who wants Ctrl+T to open in the default container. :)

Do you have any proof like a larger survey? I highly doubt that's a 50:50 request.

Why should one want to open a new tab in the default container with Ctrl-t? Ctrl-t is used and learned as a shortcut to open something (like a tab) in the current context. The current context would be not just your current browser window but also your current container. Ctrl-n would go more in your direction.

Would be great if we had sensible defaults without the need to get exensions.

Besides, do I need to get a Firefox account for this feature?

No, you don't need a Firefox account to use this feature or add-on. The "Multi-Account" describes multiple accounts on websites - not Firefox itself.

Question: If I have the core experiment enabled, should I uninstall that before installing this one?

Why isn't this under Test Pilot?

If you install the Test Pilot experiment (add-on), you'll be automatically migrated to AMO. We plan to "graduate" the Test Pilot listing soon.

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