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Comment by dools | Hacker News Reader

The ability to have separate sessions was actually the reason I switched to chrome many years ago, looks like it’s time to give Firefox another look

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Although Firefox had profiles for ages and you could start Firefox with the profile manager and "new instance allowed" to choose a profile at the start of each new instance. More hidden then in Chromium, but definitely possible.

EDIT: Just for completeness sake, here is the command to open Firefox with profile manager and new instances:

firefox --new-instance --ProfileManager %u

Yes, but with this UX it may as well not exist for 99% of users. Container tabs while still a little power-user is something that can be explained to the average user.

One of the major problems with container tabs is that they share a lot of persistent state between them, such as browsing history. Profiles are mostly isolated by comparison.

The Firefox Profile Switcher add-on provides an easy-to-use interface that looks just like Chrome's:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/profile-switc...

You'll need to install a connector for it to work. (The add-on gives instructions during the onboarding process.) Both the add-on and the connector are free and open source (GPLv3).

I use profiles and containers together on Firefox. Each profile has its own set of add-ons, browser settings, and containers. Containers in the same profile share the same add-ons and browser settings. For example, you could have separate personal and work profiles, with containers for different online accounts in each profile.

On Firefox, you have the option of using only profiles, only containers, both profiles and containers, or none of the above.

I've been looking for something like that. Thanks. But ideally, I don't want to swithswitch profiles. I want to have muliple instances of FF open, each with a different profile. Just like Chromium based browsers and users.

Anything for that?

When you choose a different profile in the Firefox Profile Switcher menu, it opens a new instance of Firefox with the new profile. The add-on experience will be very familiar if you've used Chromium's profile management features.

If you're trying to create a shortcut to Firefox that launches a profile other than the one you've selected as the default, the instructions for Linux and Windows are here:

https://kb.mozillazine.org/Shortcut_to_a_specific_profile

This is not necessary to use the profile feature, but some people prefer to launch profiles from shortcuts instead of a menu.

This is how I use Firefox; you need Qubes OS for that.

go to about:profiles in the omnibar and you'll be able to open multiple profiles from there. You can also do other general management of profiles.

I'm going to have to give this a try. I manage multiple Google Workspace accounts for clients and have stuck to Chrome for those as I have a profile set up for each account. Yes, you can log in to multiple Google accounts in any browser, but then it defaults to the first account for new windows.

The two final things that would get me off Chrome entirely:

* When I'm using my external USB microphone in a web-based conference system (mostly Cleanfeed but I've also seen it with Streamyard and Jitsi) my audio gets extremely robotic after a few minutes and it somehow impacts my entire system - I have to unplug the microphone to fix it.

* Dropbox, for some reason, hangs at 1 second left when uploading larger files (appx 60MB or so)

I'm pretty sure the profile manager stuff in Firefox goes all the way back to the Netscape 4 days. If I recall correctly, back in the way back, it used to throw you into Profile Manager and walk you through creating your initial one on first launch of fresh installs. At some point they tucked that under the rug and just started creating the default profile automatically - maybe because it made less sense to ask for a bunch of personal information up-front when the browser was broken off from the mail client? Now most people have forgotten that Profile Manager even exists, but it's been there the whole time.

my parents rely on Profile Manager. I set that up for them years ago, since my mom uses my dad's computer a bit every day. She has no need for a whole user account. Separating the stuff in the browser is enough.

I hope you become a full time user, lets curb the direction Google wants to go in.

Even if the entire HN community would switch to Firefox, it would still be a drop in the ocean to curbing Chrome's market share.

Also Firefox hasn't been doing itself any favors by alienating both the average Joe consumers and the professional devs over the years.

No it wouldn't, that's just pessimism. The entire HN community switching would have massive second-order effects. People would see experts (us) using it, we'd promote it and install it for people, we'd speak positively about it, we'd develop with it, etc. (I won't write the whole list.)

Not only that. Every few weeks I come across a site that works better in Chrome than in FF or has some quirks (Google's spreadsheets are a good example - they feel slower in FF). Although I have no hope of changing the mindset of HNers working at Google, the rest of us could make a difference.

Yeah I hate that. I still have a problem seeing comments on youtube in firefox, even when I'm logged in. Not sure we're going to be able to fix if google targets their properties to only their browser, outside of a lawsuit or gov't action.

I daily drive Firefox for a few years now, including watching youtube - never faced your issue… Maybe a misbehaving extension?

Hmmm. I do have a few going. I'll have to check.

Can’t say I’ve have any issues with comments in YouTube. Not that I spend much time in the comments section but when I do read the comments they always work fine.

Maybe the other commenter is on to something regarding extensions. The only extensions I have are ones to simplify management of containers, plus my password manager.

I also have script blocker NoScript, so I may be being punished.

What a coincidence that Google spreadsheets work better in a Google browser than in another browser.

> People would see experts (us) using it, we'd promote it and install it for people, we'd speak positively about it, we'd develop with it, etc. (I won't write the whole list.)

I wasn't super paying attention at the time, but wasn't that basically how Firefox initially established itself at the expense of Internet Explorer?

Pretty much. People say that tech people switching doesn't do anything, but when tech people switch, semi-technical people get it via osmosis (forum posts for FF the first time, presumably reddit posts today). Suddenly when someone asks their friend that's slightly more technical than them for a recommendation, they get recommended the new thing instead of the old one.

Whole process takes a couple years or so.

Then why is FF marketshare still tanking despite all the techies hyping it?

All the techies aren't hyping it. Most people that I know just use Chrome. My running joke whenever I see someone else using it in a Zoom share or something is "found the other Firefox user!"

Android and to some extent iOS, are the reason.

I remember installing Firefox (I think v0.7) for my mother in law and giving it the IE icon.

I don’t think that’s true. If the entire HN community which I assume includes tons of casual weekly reading non-logged in users, that would be massive. The number of people outside HN who would try out FF again would be a sizable multiple of the HN community.

If everyone thinks negatively, then no change will happen. Keeping reality in perspective is important, but improving things is really important too.

HN community represents a very attractive economic segment. If we switched, advertisers and web designers would pay attention. Firefox would instantly be getting paid for our searches by Google.

Well, on January 2023 when Chrome Manifest V3 is finally deployed and Ublock Origin is killed, I bet many HNers will finally switch:

https://developer.chrome.com/blog/mv2-transition/

Firefox maker, Mozilla, is in the uneasy position of being financially dependent on its search deal with Google, which accounts for the majority of the organization's revenue.

I wonder how Google will be able to twist its arms (and trust me, they will use all their power and abuse their position to attempt it) to either implement V3 or find some other way to kill ad blockers / allow ads on Firefox.

I wonder why they go with Google. Other companies are a much better fit. Time to untangle themselves.

Because money.

They've implemented V3. What they're not doing is removing support for V2, so plugins that want the full access can do so.

Is there a public page/link which mentions that they're not removing V2 support? Please share. Thanks.

All I can find is:

We have not yet set a deprecation date for Manifest v2 but expect it to be supported for at least one year after Manifest v3 becomes stable in the release channel.

https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2021/05/27/manifest-v3-updat...

So they will eventually remove it sooner than later.

On the same page: "We will support blocking webRequest until there’s a better solution which covers all use cases we consider important, since DNR as currently implemented by Chrome does not yet meet the needs of extension developers."

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