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Comment by feanaro | Hacker News Reader

- Yes, Firefox does support Containers, which are a very innovative privacy feature allowing you to maintain separate browser sessions (cookies, site preferences, ...) towards different websites inside a single browser instance.[1][2]

[1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers#w_what-are-c... [2] https://www.thechiefmeat.com/guides/containers.html

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- Yes, Firefox dropped support for remapping keys, an integral UX feature that was present in Super Metroid (SNES, 1992).

(Well, that’s not fair, they still support an API for remapping keys that only takes effect after a page tab has loaded.)

Yes, I'm eagerly waiting for them to support a proper keyboard shortcut API since I'm a former Pentadactyl and present Tridactyl user so I know your pain.

Ditto! I maintained Pentadactyl compatibility for a while when the dev team pushed breaks and the extension's metadata needed to be updated. You'll love my Hitler parody about my reaction to them breaking unsigned addons, which specifically references Pentadactyl.

"If every addon must be personally signed by Mozilla, why not just shrink-wrap the browser and make me get it from Microsoft at Best Buy?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taGARf8K5J8

An almost completely non-discoverable feature which most people won't even understand, let alone use. I think it's awesome as well, but stuff like this doesn't move the needle.

Yes, the discoverability is definitely a problem, though I think that might be on purpose and that Mozilla might be planning to do something user-facing with the feature. But I disagree it's that hard for users to eventually understand and accept, if presented right. Tabs were also a niche feature once.

Interesting. I guess it may be possible to use it to be logged into and use different email accounts, e.g. foo@emailservice.com and bar@emailservice.com from the same browser instance. That would be helpful.

Yes, you can use it for this (I do) and it works very well.

Good to know, thanks.

this is what I am doing now.

Plus, opening facebook? BAM instant new container automagically open for me, to keep facebook in its own walled garden :D

Ha. Reminds of a quote, vaguely:

In a world without Windows, something something doors (or Gates, or some other permutations of those).

Though I don't remember the quote, I remember it being a good one.

Maybe: In a world without doors, we won't need Windows or Gates?

Alternatively, you could use a desktop email client like Thunderbird to do that :)

I guess so. Used them in the past, not for quite a while now. Should give it a try again. Thanks.

In fact, I have friends who use CLI or TUI email clients, like mutt. Never really used those for than a little, somehow, despite being a long-time Unix guy. Should try that out as well. Likely be a lot faster than either desktop or webmail.

Yes this is why

> Mozilla is still the better browser when it comes to privacy

Indeed. There are many more reasons than one for why Firefox is better for privacy though, such as Chrome and even Chromium phoning home by default. Containers deserve a special mention in my opinion since it still isn't a widely known feature and is a very nice idea.

Not just privacy. When Chrome came out it could literally spank Firefox' ass in speed; there was absolutely no contest then. But over time Chrome became bigger and bigger while the folks at Mozilla optimized FF code so that today the latest Firefox can outperform the latest Chrome while still being more trustworthy privacy wise. To me as of today there's not a single reason to use Chrome over Firefox, and users should also avoid using products requiring Chrome; just remember what became of the Internet when web developers started making sites that required IE to work.

I tried this and what I couldn't figure out is: How can I keep my containers separate so that when I click on a link from an external app, it opens in the most recently active container? Similar to multiple profiles in Chrome. I couldn't figure this out and feels like a dealbreaker with the browser behaviors I've adopted.

Tabs open using the container they were opened from

But, for instance, if you click on a link from another app like Slack, they open in the 'default' or highest priority container.

I use both firefox and chrome. Chrome does have user profiles, and I can have multiple open at once. Separate cookies but ALSO separate extensions.

I love how profiles make separate extensions a feature. I can keep useful-but-rarely used extensions in a separate browser profile instead of installing/uninstalling/deciding re: extensions.

Separate browsers too, for me it's just super unpractical to always have to open a new browser window just to open facebook, personal email, work slack etc.

Tree tabs then makes its super convenient to navigate between these worlds.

I know I'm nowhere near the mainstream, but lack of tree tabs is the showstopper for me with Chrome.

You may not have been suggesting otherwise, but in case you're not aware, Firefox also has user profiles and can have multiple open at once.

not so much by default. first you have to launch firefox with a special flag. if firefox is your default browser, and your session started by clicking a link in a different program, youd have to close your browser and click the right shortcut.

unless I am mistaken and -no-remote isnt required anymore.

Not by default though. You need to install the "Multi-Account Containers" addon if you want to activate it.

The container functionality is built-in since it's a pretty pervasive mechanism, but yes, there is no default UI for it currently shipped. There are other interfaces to it besides Multi-account Containers, such as Temporary Containers[1][2], Facebook Container[3] and Google Container[4].

[1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-con...

[2]: https://github.com/stoically/temporary-containers

[3]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/facebook-cont...

[4]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-contai...

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