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ava
Making moves
Status: New idea

Firefox should have an option to open multiple instances having separate profiles. Instances should not share any user data.

Edit: The ability to open more than one Firefox profiles simultaneously

Firefox should be able to open multiple profiles simultaneously. All profiles should have their own seperate containers. The cookie created in one profile cannot be accessed by any other profile. No user data should be shared among the profiles, containers.

One solution to do this is to use nested tabs. That is the first layer of tabs should be for profiles. And each profile than will be having normal web page tabs with in them.

If you thick it is a good idea make it happen.

Thanks,

10 Comments
Status changed to: New idea
Jon
Community Manager
Community Manager

Thanks for submitting an idea to the Mozilla Connect community! Your idea is now open to votes (aka kudos) and comments.

Anonymous
Not applicable
Anonymous
Not applicable

You already can open multiple profiles either directly (for example by adding shortcuts to your system toolbar) or by opening the ProfileManager first.

ref. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-remove-switch-firefox-profiles?redirects...

pgaudiano
New member

If I understand your question correctly, you can use Firefox containers to do exactly that. Each container can have information about one particular profile.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers

ava
Making moves

Other solution to do this is to ask to pickup a proprofile whenever we open new instance of firefox from apps start menu.

fsparv
Strollin' around

Despite it's forlorn, ugly UI, a bookmark to about:profiles on the bookmarks toolbar mostly solves this albeit in an awkward way that requires a user to make the bookmark on every profile creation. (I create a profile for interacting with each customer, so this is a lot of repetitive work for me.

A native, non-bookmark-hack solution that was part of the actual Firefox UI would be nice.

Agentvirtuel
Collaborator

Hello

For information purposes other alternative

Dedicated profiles per Firefox installation
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/dedicated-profiles-firefox-installation


Some users have multiple installations of Firefox, each in separate program folders. Firefox uses a dedicated profile for each installation of Firefox, including Nightly, Beta, Developer Edition and Extended Support Release (ESR) installations. This makes Firefox more stable when switching between installations on the same computer, and also allows you to run different Firefox installations at the same time.

Prerequisite to installation location, for example and Windows

64-bit
Create Mozilla Firefox Esr installation folder in C:\Program Files
C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox Esr
Install Firefox Esr in C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox Esr

32-bit
Create Mozilla Firefox Esr installation folder in C:\Program Files (x86)
C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox Esr
Install Firefox Esr in C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox Esr

Custom installation of Firefox on Windows
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/custom-installation-firefox-on-windows


A Custom setup lets you choose the folder where Firefox program files will be installed

Illustration
Firefox Nightly Bêta Release
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19836pv4BJhXL-n9EBA3CoyIj7CzRvjP7/view?usp=sharing
You can also download the animation if you wish

https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/121-0-1-useless-quot-xyz-is-slowing-down-firefox-quot-lin...

 

squirell80
New member

I use in the same windows session, 2 differents workspace because i'm freelance. The first is my personnel one. I would find bookmark, history to my personnal use. the second workspace is professionnal. the last version of chrome should be you inspiration for the UX and the easy way to switch.

 

Flymore
New member

I agree with the fact that this feature already exists: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1231994#answer-1149335

However, it's true that it's not very user friendly. I use it, but I wouldn't recommend it to most of the people I know.

 

There are few things that could be done to improve it:

  • To add a way to start the profile manager without having to run a "-p" command line or about:profiles (which sounds like witchcraft for many people).
  • To easily allow to create different shortcuts/buttons to easily start each profile instance.
  • To have different icons or colors in the taskbar for each profile instance running.

Alternatively, there is the "containers" extension, but it has limitations: I tried to use it, but I found annoying that most of settings are shared between containers. For example, if you create a separate container for Facebook, you still have to allow keeping Facebook cookies in all containers, because if you configure Firefox to delete that cookie when closing the browser, that applies to all containers and the session is lost.

robtaylor-cf
New member

!00% agree with @Flymore . I used this feature in chrome and edge to keep work and personal seperate.

I would love to see:

* set window color scheme per profile

* switch profile from the toolbar account button - this should switch windows if a profile already has open windows, or open a window with the new profile if not.

* switch profile with a keybinding