Containers vs Profiles

Hi All,

A few years ago I had to move away from Firefox for work, I consult on javascript heavy tools and Firefox had been maxing out my CPU. I moved to Chrome, though missed several Firefox features. Thanks to Quantum I’m back, but there is one feature from Chrome that I still use it for, which is its profile implementation.

I was excited to hear about containers, but it doesn’t tick enough of my boxes. Wondering if any of this is on the roadmap, and hoping it’s useful feedback.

So for work I have logins for dummy users to demo the tools. With Chrome’s profiles implementation it is easy to keep multiple windows open logged in to the same sites as different users. It is also very easy to open a new tab in the right profile as it happens automatically by window.

I also like using profiles for personal and work so that when I’m doing a demo I can close all of my personal tabs without losing anything, and again it’s easy to open a tab in the right profile because I will be in the right window to begin with. I go far enough back that I know I could replicate this with switches when launching the exe, but that is not as graceful as Chrome’s profile UX or creating a new container.

Personally I can’t imagine using the “always open in x container” option as I’m trying to log into the same sites in different accounts, so for me I wouldn’t use that feature. I also find it cumbersome to have to pick a container on creation for each tab. I really need to be able to set containers on a per window basis.

Is this in the works? Is this helpful?

3 Likes

Hi @Kensie, Firefox do support multiple profiles too, besides the Containers. They are very different from each other. [plugins/extensions management, for example].

You can launch multiple profile instances at the same time (I use profiles+containers daily, both personally and professionally).

For instance, I do have a profile only for “banking”, other one for personal stuff, other for my own dev stuff, other for my work and so own. And within each of them I have multiple containers.

From one specific profile window is not easy to switch to another profile (or, at least, I don’t know how to do it). But usually I set one “shortcut” for each profile as if they were “different browsers”.

Containers are an API, not a feature. There are a lot of addons using this API. Check out this one https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sticky-containers/

Other addons you might like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/collections/andreipetcu/container-webextensions/

Firefox has profiles in about:profiles. Profiles are for different people (Joe and Jane). Containers are for different personas of the same person (my personal gmail vs my work gmail)

Welcome back to Firefox! Keep on rockin’ the free web!