• RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      5 months

      Yeah I don’t know why profiles itself are being mentioned as a new thing. What’s new is the more convenient interface for them

        • Mongostein@lemmy.caEnglish
          5 months

          I knew about the containers, which I’ve been using for a long time now. How is this different?

          • RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            5 months

            You can have a whole other instance of Firefox with different settings, extensions, themes, logins, bookmarks, history…

            It’s really handy imo to have a school/work profile with relevant bookmarks, history, extensions and then have a separate personal profile for all my personal shizz. Not to mention not having my personal stuff pop up in my school/work profile to avoid embarrassing moments and not having work shit annoy me on my personal profile.

            • Mongostein@lemmy.caEnglish
              5 months

              Ohhh ok yeah that makes sense. Now I’m thinking about if I want to use it… hmm

          • fitgse@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            5 months

            Profiles can have separate settings which is nice. I heavily use tab containers, but the site used for online grad school requires 3rd party cookies for any of the embedded content to work. So I have a separate school profile that has 3rd party cookies enabled.

        • gerryflap@feddit.nlEnglish
          5 months

          I want to use it but I keep forgetting it exists. Something like this should just be accessible via button in the UI so no-one misses it

        • Dultas@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5 months

          You can add -P to the shortcut to launch straight to the profile manager. Have to have no running instances when you do though.

        • RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          5 months

          I don’t find it or using the profile manager as convenient as what Chrome has

    • notarobot@lemmy.zipEnglish
      5 months

      I tried it during covid when wfh started. I found it really annoying to switch between personal and work profiles. I prefer the chrome way of asking which profile each time I click the icon or having two separate icons.

      • wildbus8979@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        5 months

        Just add -P to Firefox launch flags once and then selected “prompt me everytime”. This also has been true for rlike 20 years.

        • JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          5 months

          Or just -P “profilename” to launch that profile directly from a shortcut.

          You can have as many running simultaneously as you’d want.

        • katy ✨@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          5 months

          it’s slightly different; before to have two profiles open at the same time you had to add no-remote and it was still quirky; now its much more streamlines and background links outside of firefox will open in whichever profile has focus.

      • RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        5 months

        I have two separate shortcuts, I just set it so that one shortcut opens one profile and the other the other profile.

  • pogmommy@lemmy.mlEnglish
    5 months

    Impressive that theyre finally adding a feature that ive already been using. Makes you wonder how they do that

    • Scrollone@feddit.itEnglish
      5 months

      A feature that has been present for 20 years, but never exposed in the interface. Truly magical.

  • ModCen@feddit.ukEnglish
    5 months

    I already use profiles in Firefox but this looks a much better interface for managing them.

  • Pika@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    5 months

    uhhh, this has been a thing for a long time already. I don’t know whats new here. put about:profiles in your url bar for anyone uses a firefox based browser.

  • 1984@lemmy.todayEnglish
    5 months

    Feels super strange to read this. They had profiles for what, decades now? It just required a simple command line flag.

    I mean, this is better, but… Yeah.

  • N3Cr0@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5 months

    about:profiles always worked for me. And the profile manager. I don’t need a 3rd ui for switching profiles.

    • Baron Von J@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5 months

      The new one is a much better experience. It works like profiles in chrome now. The old one is still there for you to use if you prefer.

      • Hawke@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5 months

        It works like profiles in chrome now.

        Is it gonna pop up obnoxiously every time you start the program?

        Is it gonna demand that I create a new profile every time I sign in to Google?

        • Baron Von J@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5 months

          Is it gonna pop up obnoxiously every time you start the program?

          Your choice, there’s a checkbox to ask every time or not

          Is it gonna demand that I create a new profile every time I sign in to Google?

          I don’t recall anything like that, though I don’t recall that in Chrome either.

  • daq@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    5 months

    I think containers (that Firefox already has) are a much better way to handle this. Profiles, art least the way they are implemented on chrome, feels like a massive downgrade.

    • Beej Jorgensen@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      5 months

      It depends on how much separation you need. If you want different bookmarks, history, or settings per, then I believe you need profiles to make that happen.

      • daq@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        5 months

        Ah, makes sense. I don’t mind sharing history and have never used bookmarks or customized any settings.

      • Pup Biru@aussie.zoneEnglish
        5 months

        also different addons, and different configuration for addons etc

    • Nalivai@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5 months

      You can use containers all you want, just don’t create another profile and you’re golden.

      • daq@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        5 months

        This is what I do now, just trying to figure out why ff keeps spending time on profiles. Do they have any advantages over containers?

        • SuperUserDO@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          5 months

          For highly technical users containers are going to do everything we need.

          For non technical users who need separation, profiles are a standard known framework.

          • fitgse@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            5 months

            My non technical spouse prefers profile to separate work and personal. She uses different themes for each profile so it is very obvious which is which.

            Also one of the extensions she likes interferes with a work site she is required to use. She has that extension installed in the personal profile but not work profile.

        • Nalivai@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5 months

          Different set of cookies, different set of preferences, bookmarks, history, etc. If you need to completely separate two instances, for example one for work and one for everything else, you can only do it with profiles

        • Pup Biru@aussie.zoneEnglish
          5 months

          containers are for general browsing; profiles are for the whole browser

          profiles allow you to have different addons installed, different configurations between addons in different profiles, different browser settings (eg a SOCKS proxy for work profile, or a different default search engine, default fonts, etc… or for technical users you can have a profile with experimental settings turned on)

  • Kissaki@feddit.orgEnglish
    5 months

    The screeshots shows functionality that the current profile/profile launch UI already has. Choose, create, ask on startup.

    Right now it’s hidden behind a startup parameter. But honestly, I would prefer a UI between the current one and the new one. That screenshot looks like it would reduce usability through big spacing and suboptimal alignment. At least judging by my preferences.

    https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-remove-switch-firefox-profiles?redirectslug=profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles&redirectlocale=en-US#w_start-the-profile-manager-when-firefox-is-closed

    I guess adding a picture is nice. But does it have to be that huge and prominent?

    • stoly@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5 months

      This only works on Windows. For Macs and maybe Linux, you have to run this command to bring up a different profile:

      /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -p

      As best I can tell, there’s no way to make this into a shortcut that you could just click on. This change will be good and allow me to launch them without invoking that command in terminal several times after rebooting my computer.

      • Ferk@lemmy.mlEnglish
        5 months

        In Windows it’s the same. Though the parameter is -P (uppercase) not -p. That’s why the comment said “it’s hidden behind a startup parameter”.

        As best I can tell, there’s no way to make this into a shortcut that you could just click on.

        I dont know about Mac, but in Linux you can just manually make a .desktop file to have as a shortcut to call firefox -P, or better a shortcut to a specific profile with firefox -P <profile>. Though what I often do is keep a bookmark to about:profiles and open a new window from there.

        • stoly@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5 months

          I might try this next time I launch. Just launch one, go into profiles, and launch the second one.

      • 4am@lemmy.zipEnglish
        5 months

        I made this into a shortcut on Mac OS Panther the year Firefox came out (2004). This has been possible on all operating systems for decades

      • setsubyou@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5 months

        On Mac:

        If you want an icon you can double click on your desktop, you can put you command in a file with the extension “.command” and mark it as executable. Double clicking it will run the content as a shell script in Terminal.

        If you want something that can be put into the Dock, use the Script Editor application that comes with macOS to create a new AppleScript script. Type do shell script "<firefox command here>" then find Export in the menu. Instead of Script, choose export to Application and check Run Only. This will give you an application you can put in the Dock.

        If you want to use Shortcuts, you can use the Run Shell Script action in Shortcuts too.

        Finally, if you want something that opens multiple firefoxes at once, chain multiple firefox invocations together on one line separated by an ampersand. There is an option you have to use (–new-instance I think?) to make Firefox actually start a complete new instance.

      • Kissaki@feddit.orgEnglish
        5 months

        The “Use the selected profile without asking at startup” checkbox in the dialog is not there on mac?

        • stoly@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5 months

          I hadn’t known that this was a method. My entire workflow has been changed.

        • stoly@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5 months

          On Windows, I had two shortcuts–one each for a profile. It became my workflow and annoyed me when I couldn’t do that on a Mac. I didn’t always want my work profile to open by mistake, check into systems, etc. when I only wanted the home one, for instance.

          • 4am@lemmy.zipEnglish
            5 months

            Why couldn’t you do that on a Mac? You can edit the shortcut path and add the flags and parameters there.

            • stoly@lemmy.worldEnglish
              5 months

              I was never able to figure a way to do this. I could link to the executable but not modify the shortcut to allow for flags.

  • Dragomus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5 months

    Uhm … is this perhaps for the android browser then?

    The desktop browser has had this for a long long time, though in recent builds a bit hidden. I still use various profiles, very handy.

  • slacktoid@lemmy.mlEnglish
    5 months

    Why would I use this when I have Firefox containers?

    • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      5 months

      separate settings, separate addons, separate about prefs. also for when the PC is used by more than one person but there is only one user account

      • slacktoid@lemmy.mlEnglish
        5 months

        Ok this is handy ngl. I’ve forgotten about the shared family compute scenario

    • AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5 months

      It’s the same as about:profiles

      Just an easy way to separate people’s browsing histories, cookes, bookmarks, etc I guess. And you can have them sync independently as well. For if other people want to use the same computer

      • slacktoid@lemmy.mlEnglish
        5 months

        That makes sense. The bookmarks and settings kinda made everything fit better in my head, thanks!

      • slacktoid@lemmy.mlEnglish
        5 months

        But can’t containers do that? Maybe I’m missing something?

    • Ech@lemmy.caEnglish
      5 months

      I love containers, but it has a pretty frustrating and unfriendly ui. If something else allowed sorting and categorizing, I think that’d be an upgrade.

      • slacktoid@lemmy.mlEnglish
        5 months

        Fair, I just always felt containers were better than profiles, cause each tab is a profile now. The tooling does need improvement, I still get lost when trying to access some configs for it

  • alastel@lemmy.mlEnglish
    5 months

    One thing that I wonder is if I can convert my old firefox -P profiles into this new kind of profiles, and have them all be synced by firefox with a single account instead of recreating them on all my devices. On the filesystem they seem to be the same, just not in the same place.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5 months

      Their blog implied you would need to create a separate sync account for each profile. It’d obviously be better if you could choose which profiles are linked to which account, in addition to local only.

      • Pup Biru@aussie.zoneEnglish
        5 months

        i guess you’d need to expose both options: the ability to sync some profiles to some accounts and others to another… for example, i probably wouldn’t want my personal profile to sync to my work devices but id want my work profiles to sync between each other and be accessible from some of my home devices

          • embMaster@lemmy.worldEnglish
            5 months

            Yes, and also no. Usually, I’d call something a feature if non tech savvy users can use it easily. If it’s hidden behind the command line, most users probably can’t use it. So, to me and colloquially, I wouldn’t call it a feature. Although I get the argument for it.

            • Axolotl@feddit.itEnglish
              5 months

              You can type in the search bar of the browser about:profiles to access it

        • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          5 months

          Is a hidden feature still a feature?

          I’ve been using this daily for many years. It’s behind a CLI flag, is that hidden ?

  • Reygle@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5 months

    Ironically, in the article it’s pictured running on Windows, which now has a built-in mechanic for automatically screen shotting everything you do and keeping records.

    Yay.

  • theherk@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5 months

    I find multi account containers to be the best workflow ergonomics when it comes to separating logins and sessions. I think having the same bookmarks, theme, etc. is actually nice. But I’m sure many really enjoy profile swapping.

    • Pup Biru@aussie.zoneEnglish
      5 months

      profiles also allow different addons and addon configurations, default fonts, browser config, etc… it’s kinda like having a whole other user account or a whole other copy of the browser, rather than just cookie and storage isolation

      • theherk@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5 months

        Understood, which is why for my workflow, I prefer MAC. Still a good feature.

        • Pup Biru@aussie.zoneEnglish
          5 months

          totally; and i think that’s very fair for the large majority of use-cases… most people don’t need different browser settings: they just need different local storage