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- Hacker News
- I am a big user of the multi-account containers extension. It is nice to keep banking in one container, Amazon in its own container, social media in its own, and so on.
Syncing across device and always reopening a certain site/domain inside a specific container are must-have features, so I think I'll keep using the extension until they are available natively.
by sylens - I'm curious about Mozilla's seeming shift in strategy (possibly it was awhile ago and I overlooked it):
For a long time, with relatively limited (compared to Google and Apple) development resources, they focused on minimizing upkeep and technical debt. They added and maintained features appealing to the vast majority, the non-technical users, and left the rest to extensions.
Now I'm seeing geek and power user favorites like a built-in color picker, PDF editing features, and now multi-account containers moved into the browser. What changed? Are they focusing on different audience? Do they have new resources so that they can afford maintaining all these additional, more niche features?
by mmooss - Their previous strategy of being a nominally more ethical Chrome clone was a slow suicide.
- Partly they're just exposing existing features. Containers were part of the browser already, the UI just didn't show them by default.
I'm still waiting for them to add a UI option to enable the `privacy.resistFingerprinting` setting.
by aniviacat - Multi-account containers is the main reason why I stick to Firefox. Safari and Chrome also have container features (more like profiles, really), but they don't work the same: you open tabs in a separate profile and you can't have tabs, each in a different container, side by side.by SwiftyBug
- I am in too many MS365 orgs. Firefox containers are the best solution to manage this, but, I simply have too many issues with Teams (especially with Teams org switching, sometimes needed when someone invites your org account into another) and I find myself back in Chrome and Edge, deleting config folders etc (all in Linux). It’s not fair!!!by teekert
- Oddly enough I thought Firefox had that a few years ago. I forget what I used - maybe a Mozilla extension? - but it even colour-coded tabs.
Am I wrong? Was it unofficial? A hack?
by vintagedave - Firefox multicontainers I think it isby Alifatisk
- It was an official extension, distributed separately from Firefox, but it was so ubiquitous and a dependency for so many other Firefox extensions, that it would be unusual to not have it installed.by NoGravitas
- The article mentions this extension; it seems like what you're describing: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...by zache6
- > For almost a decade, many of you have relied on our Multi-Account Containers extension to keep work, personal, and privacy-sensitive browsing separate without needing multiple browsers or profiles.
> We’ve heard your feedback and understood the value you find in that separation. Now, we’re bringing the power of the Multi-Account Containers extension directly into the heart of Firefox for all to benefit from.
by notatoad - Multi-Account Containers paired with Container Proxy allows for some really cool setups. I especially like the options to use socks proxies. Hope they will add proper proxy support later.by svl7
- interesting. i was not aware of that feature. this will be very useful.by em-bee
- What are the cool setups with proxies?by warpech
- Same here, probably my most used feature. Really useful if you route all of your traffic through a VPN by default, but you want to selectively route something outside of it. Just route it through a socks proxy running in your homelab.by DaSHacka
- > the options to use socks proxies
I pair it with wireproxy [0]. This way you can assign any Wireguard-capable VPN for specific containers. It's extremely useful.
by nbaksalyar - I should not have to:
- Install add-ons like "Temporary Containers"
- And if some people do they should certainly not have to deal with a bloated container list with temp container names
- Just let me select how I want this "containers" feature - like "open all links in unique temp containers" (unless I select otherwise or set otherwise for certain websites, then go to that container), maybe let me select a sub rule like "based on domain" or "subdomains" (group tabs/windows)
- I should not have to go and toggle "Limit to designated sites" in every bloody container I have created and I have created (had to create!) way too many already.
There are apparently other container add-ons like Temporary Containers (and a Plus ones as well) and Auto Containers but I really should not have to do all that.
MAC is a great add-on and far head of any browser out there in this regard but the feature has been sort of "contained" for far too long and not been made flexible/usable enough.
- This. No cookies should be cross-site visible, ever, unless I explicitly choose for them to be.by jsrozner
- This is great, and the direction Firefox should focus on: creating user-first features that other browsers won't and extension authors can't.
I only wish it was more automated. Every site should automatically get its own container.
How much of the anti-tracking value is defeated by non-cookie browser fingerprinting?
by xnx - Use the Temporary Containers extension, it does just that.by ashkulz
- Every site should automatically get its own container.
This will break almost all sso when authentication service is at different domain.
by asdewqqwer - I isolate containers by the type of account I am using on there.
So FB gets a different container. Google accounts get a container each. When I need to log in with Google - use the Google account's container.
Work gets different ones - depending on nature of work.
That makes it easy to manage containers for me.
In theory that account's data tracking to an extent is limited. But with browser fingerprinting I doubt this whole set up is very useful once you start aggregating data from multiple providers.
by wtfHN26 - I use profiles for this, I wonder what the tradeoffs are between the two approaches. I've actually been thinking about building some tools to make it easier to create and manage profiles on the fly. For me I really think profiles are better since the boundaries are harder - there's no worry about accidentally hitting the "log in with Google" button and clearly identifying myself to a site or similar, because I read the news in a separate profile from my Google account. And it would be nice if those sort of guardrails were very intuitive and easy to set up by default. But I feel like containers may be too squishy.
- Working with multiple profiles is painful as you have to duplicate setup, and data for extensions such as uMatrix isn't shared.
Also I would like each Firefox profile running instance to have its own icon at OS (desktop) level (Ubuntu, Windows) to ease switching.
by dolmen - I have been using profiles for years in Chrome/Vivaldi for similar reasons. I do a lot of web app development and this is extremely useful for testing. In fact I have 10 different profiles on one of my setups so that I can easily simulate multiple users accessing the same app and each profile can remember its own passwords, settings, cookies, and session data, etc. Firefox’s MAC seems like it’s not quite as isolated as a separate profile but I can see how it would be useful for end-users who want to have different “identities” in the same profile.by temporallobe
- the benefit of containers is that they are all in the same browser. all your settings, extensions, remembered passwords, etc. apply to all containers and you can more easily reopen a site in a different container.
i don't get the login with google problem. you would be logged in in one container and not in any of the others. unless you open a site in your "google container", nothing will happen. the container where you log in to google should automatically stay logged in anyways (i am not sure, i don't use google login, but it works like that for many other logins, hackernews for example) so you should never be tempted to hit that login with google button. the separate process only helps you if you save the google password in the browser. if you are like me and don't store passwords in the browser then the containers have the advantage that it is easier to check if you are in the right container instead of making sure you are in the right profile, unless you use themes to differentiate your profiles.
by em-bee - Profiles and Containers are a bit of a peanut butter and jelly situation. There's uses for both separately, there's a strong intersection of what they do well that you use either for (topping a slice of toast), and then together they also can make a beautiful sandwich.
Profiles form very different windows. You can decorate them to make them obvious at a glance which Profile is which. Up until recent Profile improvements, switching between them and managing them used to be a lot of work, including managing which one was the default for links from other applications.
Containers are tabs in a shared window. They get marked with a subtle color bar (the colors you choose for each container) and that's mostly it, they otherwise "blend in" to the same shared window. Reopening tabs in a different container is easy. Opening new tabs in a different container is easy. Containers share a few more things than Profiles do (but are still isolated in important ways such as cookies).
I have every site that needs my Google account pinned to always open in a specific container. The boundary is hard where I need it (the privacy protections) but soft for make workflows easier. If I find a YouTube embed in the wild somewhere that needs a login for one of the many restrictive reasons some do, I just click the normal link (or middle click for new tab) and YouTube opens in my Google container automatically. I don't need to copy paste between windows (or use Sync's sometimes slow tab sync engine). If I accidental hit a "log in with Google" button it opens up in the Google container and I know something is wrong because I don't expect random other websites in that container. (Relatedly, I finally installed uBlock Origin not to get rid of ads, but solely to get rid of that awful annoying content-obscuring popup for Google login on sites like Medium. I feel like there should be far more backlash on Google for being a bad actor doing that.)
I also use Profiles for alternate identities, things where a very different looking window are helpful to know I'm in the right place. Containers and Profiles are useful together.
by WorldMaker - Good that they are integrating that into the main browser.
For me the big use case is having different Google accounts active in one window. Work and private. And when I was doing freelance projects, I sometimes had 3 or 4 different Google accounts active. Plus assorted stuff tied to those accounts. Using different colors for each makes it easy to tell apart the tabs.
Another use case is if you are testing the same app for different customers with different credentials. I do this a lot and I have dedicated containers for each customer so I can easily switch with out having to log out and in a lot.
And of course some companies that can't be trusted with cookies, like Facebook, get isolated. I open that container less and less these days. But I still check every few months. I also keep my bank's website in its own container just on principle.
- If seems this should make obsolete the setup of having a separate computer (e.g., old laptop) to isolate Facebook properties, or am I missing something where a separate machine would be advantageous?
(I avoid FB like the plague but may need to use it for some biz uses where they effectively host too large a share of the intended market)
by toss1 - Firefox's Multi-Account Containers changed the game for me back in 2018 or 2019, and is what got me to switch back to Firefox for 95% of my personal browser use. The "Always open {{domain}} in this container" and the ability to open a specific container with a keyboard shortcut seem like small things, but I can't imagine life without them anymore.
I never understood why it was set off to the side in an (official, first-party) extension, because I was always afraid they would one day stop supporting it. Now when I explain to people why I prefer Firefox, I don't have to explain "There's this extension, don't worry it's official, that allows me to..." I can just say "It has containers built-in. They're great. Try them."
by chao-