As someone who recently switched from Chrome → Arc → Firefox, and literally cannot live without browser profiles, I’m curious about how others use their browsers.
I also use profiles, for work and leisure. Mostly for differentiating extensions and the data they get access to (no container tabs at work, and very few extensions there overall), but also for bookmarks.
[0]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/temporary-con...
I needed to use two tailscale networks on the same machine. And, since I'm crazy, I self-host using headscale, which means both must use the same IP block (100.64.0.x). How can this be possible on one machine?
I use lima to run a little container and inside that I have a secondary tailscale network established. Then, I run a little SSH forwarding script to setup a socks proxy from inside that container. One of my firefox profiles can then use custom network settings to point to that socks proxy and get access to all my internal machines for the secondary tailscale network.
As I mentioned, this is only possible with Firefox. Both Safari and Chrome use the system level settings for proxy, which I cannot use for my other Firefox profiles which need to use the main tailscale network.
I love firefox profiles and cannot live without them.
As an aside, I'm pretty blown away that I can run a secondary tailscale network inside a container running on a host network with a primary tailscale network, and have it all work perfectly. Wireguard and tailscale are incredible.
The only issue I have is that I often have to shutdown profiles and lima machines because the memory usage adds up. But, other than that it is a terrific experience.
The other four accounts are for special purposes. Each hobby and volunteer concern I've split off to be separate and sort of siloed. I have Google One with a family plan, so my "family of five" consists of all my personal accounts, linked for the One benefits, such as extra Drive storage. But they've all got their separate Drive space, Photos, bookmarks and browser extensions/settings.
Unfortunately, I can only use browser profiles on the Windows 11 system. On my Android phone, and my Chromebook, browser profiles are not supported! For some of the accounts, I maintain a separate Chromebook login, but mostly I use both of these devices with my main Google account logged in, so the bookmarks and other browser profile features are wholly unavailable.
I am unsure why there's a lack of profile support from Google on these devices. I feel like they're trying to encourage separate sign-ins, and it's some kind of security concern, but I'm not entirely sure.
I use KDE Plasma Desktop, and have a couple symlinks to /usr/bin/firefox in ~/bin/ which have different names. I've setup multiple 'Applications' for Firefox which use those symlinks as the 'program' and arguments of the format: -P [hardcodedprofilename] --new-window %u
Sadly, either KDE resolves the symlink, or Firefox does as the program forks.
If I ps axf | grep firefox I can't tell which firefox belongs to which process based on the command line arguments.
It would really be nice if the -P profile or -p profilepath(full) were the IMMEDIATE arguments after /usr/lib/firefox/firefox or similar. "Icons-and-Text Task Manager" isn't smart enough and only has TWO group options (Do not group) and (By Program Name), but I could see future support and/or other task group programs allowing group by firstN arguments or passing the PID off to another program to have it run commands and figure out a result.
For example, I might want to allow 3rd party cookies on a work profile but not on a personal profile.
The personal profile use my personal mail, and has various container tabs as needed.
The scouts profile use the scouts email for syncing, share with my fellow scouts.
The fencing association I manage syncs with my personal email in the association's domain, and it has 3 containers: association-personal (for my files and email in google workplace), association-admin (for managing the whole workplace) and backup (recovery email for the workplace and for some other external services before workplace).
With containers only the sync will not work, and also I will be nagged to "switch to this container" everytime I open a google-related page, which I use with 5 different accounts. Profiles and containers fit perfectly my use case.
I wish there was an extension (or, much much better yet, something built-in) that would let me create "container groups" where I could list domain names or URL patterns, and always have them open in an isolated container group.
Having sites auto-load into different containers elevates the experience from the occasional handy tool into essential component.
I fear the day Microsoft forces Edge for Azure administration.
edit: flaking out, since I can't think of a better way to describe what's happening :)
- Firefox Focus as default browser when clicking links from native apps to always open it with an empty cookie jar
- Brave Android as default manual browser, and for watching videos (audio only) with screen turned off - the only browser to support it, behind a pref
- Opera Android when I need to zoom & have text to reflow (it's the only browser which supports this, behind a pref)
- Separate browser only for social media, to not mix history with default browser.
I used to use Firefox profiles long time ago on desktop, but as it required command line flag, and was not first-class UI supported, I started instead using Firefox Stable / Dev / Nightly.
Before switching to Arc, I used to do the same with installing multiple versions of Chrome. I'd have the Chrome release / beta / dev versions on my machine, each one for a different use case.
Nowadays, I use Librewolf the same way as I used the non-tracking profile, and I just have one profile on Firefox that I use in the same way as the Vanilla profile. Still a big container person, especially for banks.
I use different color schemes to visually distinguish them.
The only problem is that opening link from other apps do not automagically select right profile, so I have to manually copypaste it. Otherwise, it all works awesomely.
- Firefox? Sync but difficult browser profile management
- Brave? Multiple profiles due to being chrome based, but they use this weird sync system that I'm not a fan of
- Opera? Sync but no multiple profiles on mac (last I checked)
- Safari? Sync AND profiles, but the safari ui really doesn't do it for me
Hopefully this update to multiple profile UX in Firefox will make it viable for my typical use.
One profile has no ad blocking, for the extremely rare occasions when there's a site that I actually want to view that doesn't work with ads blocked.
One profile is for testing.
The other is for regular browsing.
However, I don’t want my “Work” profile accessible from my phone at all, so now I use Orion for work and Safari for everything else. REALLY wish there was a way to segregate profiles based on device or have it be an option in iCloud.
We also use a separate profile for work stuff and another separate profile for NSFW stuff.
> "Having [your undercover identity's] corpse on my hands would be just as embarrassing as having [your real one]. Schizoid or no, not even you can compartmentalize yourself to that extent."
> "I am not schizoid," Miles bit off. "A little manic-depressive, maybe," he admitted in afterthought.
> Galeni's lips twitched. "Know thyself."
> "We try, sir."
> Galeni paused, then chose perhaps wisely to ignore that one.
-- Brothers in Arms by Lois McMaster Bujold
It’s similar to Arc, but with Firefox underneath. It has workspaces and you can assign different containers to each workspace.
I can't recommend it enough.
And, profiles is the only thing preventing me from going all in on Chrome.
I have 6 profiles across my personal, university, and work contexts. And can't imagine living without them.
When I was using Chromium-based browsers, I never used profiles either.
(I know Bitwarden introduced account switching, haven't tried it as I'm content with profiles)
I have about:profiles as the first tab in my set of home tabs...for multiple profiles. I am pretty sure I will continue to do that so long as Firefox allows it because drop down menus are pretty terrible UX and my first tab is always just ctrl-1 away. Good luck.
I want to have two YouTube accounts running simultaneously - one for entertainment and another for coding/AI/science. That way the YT recommendations in both accounts diverge to the different use cases. Using two Firefox profiles was the only way to do this.
I would be very disappointment to see Firefox profiles deprecated.
Minor nitpick - the poll options should say 'yes I use profiles' not 'yes I do'. Same with the no option. Be clear to avoid confusion.
I now remember I chose profiles so I could keep two completely different Firefox color themes so I know which 'state' I am in (work/play) instantly. Having said that - I think I need to give containers another look since they are less overhead.