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Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

The thing that tipped it over for me was the Multi-Container Tabs[0] Mozilla extension. Aside from being a fantastic privacy and security tool, it is also wonderful for development.

[0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...

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My favorite hidden feature in Firefox is having multiple profiles[0],[1]. Unlike containers, profiles have separate bookmarks, extensions, etc. I have found profiles even more useful than containers for development.

[0] about:profiles (paste into URL bar in Firefox)

[1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-...

This is a feature of Chrome as well, although it isn't very hidden. https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2364824

Try the Temporary Containers plug-in, it's even better. It will automatically remove all site cookies when you close the tab, and can be configured to open all links as a self contained container.

Basically every site you visit will be completely isolated - and fully cleaned up afterwards.

Why not just use private windows / incognito for this use case?

Not GP, but I use the add-on because:

1. I want my history saved locally (private browsing deletes history on close). 2. Private browsing requires a new window; I want to have a private tab. 3. All tabs in a private browsing window share the same cookies, so I can still be tracked* within a session; I want a new container with each new tab.

*trivially. I'm well aware that I can still be tracked by fingerprinting, etc, and I have other add-ons to help protect against that.

> private browsing window share the same cookies

Not in Safari, to my experience

In Safari each incognito tab has separate cookies but in Chrome the cookies are shared across the entire incognito session across multiple tabs and even multiple windows.

I stopped using them when I realized they can switch into a "Facebook" container when I visit Facebook, bit they can't switch back out of it when I subsequently visit another site.

This was a common feature request. Has it been implemented, yet?

There's an extension which does. https://github.com/stoically/temporary-containers

Seems high-risk to me: All Facebook needs to do is set up a redirector that isn't at a domain considered "Facebook", and include a tracking ID in the redirector URL, and they'll be able to try and de-anonymize your non-"Facebook" container when your tracker-laden link opens in it.

That's not the current behavior, so I'd say it's been implemented.

The facebook extension by mozilla solves this: https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/facebook-container-extensio...

This looks similar to profile switcher / People menu in Chrome [1]. Chrome's implementation restricts the entire window to belonging to one person, but I use separate windows for this use case already anyway. I'm not sure that I see the use case for the in-between abstraction.

Can you selectively enable an add-on / extension for only one container but not others in Firefox with this extension?

[1]: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2364824

Profiles have been a Firefox feature since before Chrome existed, though the UI is tucked away under the 'about:profiles' page.

Yep, I switched and use that every day.

Do the different contains each have their own bookmarks and history?

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