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Comment by tomc1985 | Hacker News Reader

tomc1985

Is this any different than Firefox's regular container support?

It's a convenient wrapper for that which automatically redirects Facebook pages into the container, redirects other sites to be outside the container, and deletes Facebook cookies:

> How does this compare to the Firefox Multi-Account Containers extension?

> Facebook Container specifically isolates Facebook and works automatically. Firefox Multi-Account Containers is a more general extension that allows you to create containers and determine which sites open in each container.

> You can use Multi-Account Containers to create a container for Facebook and assign facebook.com to it. Multi-Account Containers will then make sure to only open facebook.com in the Facebook Container. However, unlike Facebook Container, Multi-Account Containers doesn’t prevent you from opening non-Facebook sites in your Facebook Container. So users of Multi-Account Containers need to take a bit extra care to make sure they leave the Facebook Container when navigating to other sites. In addition, Facebook Container assigns some Facebook-owned sites like Instagram and Messenger to the Facebook Container. With Multi-Account Containers, you will have to assign these in addition to facebook.com.

> Facebook Container also deletes Facebook cookies from your other containers on install and when you restart the browser, to clean up any potential Facebook trackers. Multi-Account Containers does not do that for you.

(https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/facebook-cont...)

The addon desc (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/facebook-cont...) says:

> Facebook Container leverages the Containers feature that is already built in to Firefox. When you enable Facebook Container, you may also see Containers named Personal, Work, Shopping, and Banking while you browse. If you wish to use multiple Containers, you’ll have the best user experience if you install the Firefox Multi-Account Containers extension https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/multi-account-conta...

So: No, it is not.

There's a few little extra gubbins in there. See sibling comments

It's got Facebook in the name to ride the hate wave? I'm so glad Mozilla hired a Marketing team... /s

IIRC, this was just one engineer's side project to take their existing container tech, which might be too 'advanced' for most users, and make a one-off addon that more users might be interested in.

Do you think that Mozilla's marketing of Firefox as more privacy focused is a bad thing?

> Do you think that Mozilla's marketing of Firefox as more privacy focused is a bad thing?

Not at all. This just strikes me as desperation, jumping on the hate train against Facebook because it's easy. Instead I'd like to see them actually develop their container functionality into a mainstream feature for the browser that might gain enough attention to make people start asking why Chrome, Safari, or Edge don't do the same.

I could see it very easily existing somewhere between the "New Window" and "New Private Window" menu options. They'd just need to rebrand it as something other than "containers" for the masses to understand it. "Private Window" would have been good but unfortunately that's been taken, in hindsight they should have gone with something that more clearly convey's the "burned after reading" forgetful nature of the private window because I think private conveys secret/isolated without the self destruction that comes with a Private/Incognito window..

People understand the Private/Incognito window, it wouldn't be hard to explain that a container window exists somewhere between a regular window and Private/Incognito. They could also easily surface or suggest sites you might want to containerize.

Up until now I hadn't heard of their containers feature despite being a Firefox user so at least one techy has benefited from this update. Though I doubt I am alone.

It's smart – my only complaint when seeing this is "how come nobody's focusing on Google?"

Mozilla is paid by Google. WHy would they antagonize their own parent company?

Mozilla and Google have a business contract with a well-defined scope. Google has a similar contract with Apple. Google isn't Mozilla's parent company just as it isn't Apple's.

Apple makes 97% of its revenue from Google? Because Mozilla does. Your comparison is not valid.

Source: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2016/

What I said is perfectly valid. Parent company is a well-defined term that doesn't apply here.

Now, may Google try to put pressure on Mozilla? Sure. Would Mozilla obey? Possibly...? None of this means that this has actually happened or will happen. Stop spreading conspiracy theories.

> Now, may Google try to put pressure on Mozilla? Sure.

There is an implicit pressure when the existence of the company depends on one entity.

> Would Mozilla obey? Possibly...?

Would they rather put 100s of people out of a job? Close down shop? Because 97% reduction in revenue can cause that.

It's quite unlikely that the options would be as clear cut as "delete the Google container addon or close down Mozilla." Note that Mozilla has just recently operated roughly two years I think without a contract with Google.

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