Containers now available in Firefox 153

[alanmbyrne]

I'm excited to announce that as of Firefox version 153, Containers are now built into the browser. More information can be found in this blog post.
In this preview release, you can:Open tabs in specifications containers:

• Keep your browsing activity isolated by context.
• Customize your workspace: Create and manage containers with your own names, colors, and icons.
• Manage settings easily: Control your container setup directly from the Firefox settings surface.
• Get Started: Right-click any tab or long-press the new tab (+) button to open a container tab — or head to Firefox Settings to create your first container.
  
  If you’re already using the Multi-Account Containers, there’s nothing special you need to do. Not all of the features of the add-on are available in the first-party version of containers just yet, we’re still building them out.  You can continue to use the add-on alongside the built in containers, no need to uninstall the add-on.
  
  This is the first step, and we plan on continuing the work on making this better. To help us ensure we're building the right thing, we would love to hear your feedback about this initial release below. Please let us know how you use containers, what they help you with, so that we can figure out what we should prioritize next!

[malthe]

For my workflow, it would be ideal if a window could be configured with a default container, such that opening a new tab here using a keyboard shortcut would have this configured container assigned.

I know that browser profiles is a way I can get that behavior, but that has its own issues.

[FirefoxForever]

I'd like to know how it relates to the cookie isolation feature that we have now. I mean the "isolate cross-site cookies" setting. Will it work together, or will the isolation become obsolete?

[hc289]

Long time user of Multi account containers here. This is a killer Firefox feature for me as a developer. Testing IAM flows, doing demos where I'm playing multiple users interacting, keeping different sessions open so I can juggle my multiple codex subs, all valuable use cases. I find trying to do the equivalent on Chrome enormously frustrating.

Colleagues have to do demos with one edge window, one chrome window, one incognito window - agony!

[FirefoxForever]

I think profiles, the already-existing feature would allow that, for you and your colleagues, both in Firefox and in Chrome.

[hc289]

Yeah if I wanted to have to deal with lots of windows. Having per tab containers is super nice, more than one browser window per screen and I'm instantly lost trying to remember which window has which tab.

[FirefoxForever]

You'll get equally lost with containers then.

[hc289]

You might need to re read the announcement

[AlexHaan]

I personally skipped the Profiles feature.

For many things I do want some shared things. Like bookmarks, history. But just separated session and whatever that entails.

I like the ease of multi containers. Don't want to setup complete separate profiles.

[tree_frog]

I'm glad to see this becoming a mainstream focus for Firefox. Thank you.

Could you clarify what exactly is new in Firefox 153? I've been using containers in Firefox for years at this point, but I've never installed the "Firefox Multi-Account Containers" extension (only the "Facebook Container" extension, which enables container-tab features that seem to date back as far as Firefox 57).

The official release notes for Firefox 153 just list containers as "new", not as "now enabled by default" or anything.

[alanmbyrne]

The fact that the functionality is now built into Firefox, rather than the add-on, is the new part.

[greyguy]

I have a couple of related questions as well:

1) Comparing the new built-in containers in Firefox 153 with the Facebook Containers extension, are the caveats in the support link below still valid?

How is Facebook Container different from Multi-account Containers?
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-facebook-container-different-multi-account-con

2) So if I currently uninstall the Facebook Containers extension, I will lose some functionality (as per the link above), right?

Very good move to make it built-in, looking forward to the future of this! 

[myspace]

Agreed. Also glad to see them focusing more on this feature! 

[TechHorse]

@tree_frog, yes I too was wondering what aspect of containers is new, as my understanding is that the functionality has been available (without add-ons) for years?

But if the developers are adding more options to the native Containers then I have a suggestion. One that I know I am not the first to make.

I did use the Firefox Multi-Account Containers add-on in the past, and while it generally did the job very well, there was one major niggle. The fact that while you can set auto-switching rules to assign different sites to different containers, there was no quick way to temporarily suspend these auto-switching rules.

As There are occasions where, for example, you might want a site that would normally open in a different container to open in the current one, as a one-off.

But there seemed to be no way to do this without modifying the add-on's internal settings or site lists, and then modifying them back afterwards.

So my suggestion would be for there to be a toggle button somewhere, or a hotkey, that when activated cancels all forced auto-switching rules and just lets any site open in the current container.

Again, I know that something like this has been requested many times, but if the developers have containers currently in mind, then hopefully they will consider this suggestion for a method to temporarily toggle off site assignments.

[AlexHaan]

Sometimes that would indeed come in handy!

I would sometimes want multiple Google sessions open. Not have them forced into the one container.

[Lancenet]

Firefox Multi-Account Containers is one of the reasons why I use Firefox as my main browser.

I'd love to see the containers becoming more integrated with Firefox Sync.

And since we are talking about Sync I will allow myself to go off-topic for a second and say that it would be really helpful if the Firefox team started to maintain an official docker container for Firefox sync server and fxa. I know lots of people would love to selfhost these services but Mozilla could help us a little bit by making it easier with official containers and instructions.

[AlexHaan]

A feature that the add-on lacks is the choice to keep more separated in the container. Not all. Just some; like keeping history and bookmarks limited to a container by itself.

Profiles give that, I guess. I haven't tried it. Using that next to containers seemed too much.

[xytsrm0]

The two most important: Open in NEW TAB & Open In NEW WINDOW.

Click memory expects that order; any NEW options should be added AFTER Open in NEW WINDOW!

Please move Open in NEW CONTAINER after NEW WINDOW.

[AzrealDuCain]

This unnecessary change adds more ugly UI clutter we don't need or want.

[TechHorse]

AzrealDuCain, I have not updated to 153 yet, but in 152 I have a setting "Use Container Tabs".

if you go to Tools menu > Settings and search for "container", then perhaps you'll find this or a similar option, and unchecking it will remove the UI elements related to containers?

[quiet35]

Hi, MAC is a Firefox killer feature for me, have been using it for many years. I use it heavily to confine sites and services like Google, Amazon, Aliexpress, banks, government services etc.
I am excited about the functionality being moved into the browser itself rather than having it in an add-on. The add-on interface has some issues, and I hope those will be resolved during the moving process.
The main issue than I have with MAC is inability to manually assign a site to be always opened in a container. I mean, by typing the address into an edit box of some kind, not by clicking a menu item when a site is already opened. Because a site might do a redirect (maybe even leading to another site redirect), and you've got to catch it loaded and cancel the redirect at the right time to be able to add it to a container. There must be an option not only to view a list on designated sites, but to add new sites to the list. For some reason, it's possible to delete a site from the list, but not to add one.
Another issue is inability to simply sort containers by name. It's possible to arrange them, but manually, it's going to take ages (I have ~50 containers). Automatic sorting by name would be great.
And, overall, it feels like the interface behind the "Manage Containers" button hasn't been well designed and implemented. For instance, it takes ~3 seconds just to open the designated site list.
I hope the new interface you are developing will be well thought through and well implemented. Thank you for your work, Firefox is fast and comfortable to use in my workflow.

[k_sze]

Will there be an easy way to seamlessly migrate from the Multi-Account Containers plug-in to the native containers?

[abhirath]

I'd love the option to open new tabs with the container if the current tab is already in a container. And I'd love to be able to assign containers to tab groups so the entire group uses a specific container. I often have tabs that are all work-related or all personal-related together in groups, and it'd be helpful!

[VADemon]

I love containers and use them for light separation of websites/contexts for privacy. For example, when using account on a website, it's always from a non-default container. Using multiple account per website is a common scenario too. My feature menu is as follows:

1. Opening a URL inside a specific container from an external application. The 3rd party extension does it, but its implementation very clunky (open-intercept-reopen). I think per-container "passwords" should be an option there too, so "Banking" can't be opened simply by specifying the name.
2. New Tab should inherit currently open container. It should respect user's current context.
3. Right click on arrow in Search bar (URL bar too?) should allow container selection. Then instantly open web search inside that container on click.
4. The reason I don't use "auto-open this website", as mentioned above, there's no way to temporarily opt-out of this setting.
5. More icons. More colors for those not visually impaired
6. In addition to colors, allow multiple different "underlines" to be selected for containers. Default is the single line. There's enough space in UI to permit dotted, dashed, dot-dashed, wave, double underlines. They are visible in tab overview. Why? I don't use icons for differentiation. They aren't expressive in my opinion. So I'm left with only colors to loosely separate contexts into containers. Therefore I lack means to separate different containers within the same context. E.g. accounts. My proposition is as follows:
   • Green, underline: Banking icon/1 (personal account)
   • Green, wave: Banking icon/2 (company account)

[Mkn]

Hi, I have three questions:

1. Are there plans to develop containers for the mobile version?
2. Are there also plans to add a workspaces feature?
3. Will it be possible to open private tabs instead of just windows?
Thank you!