I use Firefox multi-account containers[1] extensively, it's honestly the primary reason I use Firefox these days. The big win for me is that I _hate_ having to use the Google account switcher, so I basically set up a container for each Gmail account (work, personal, old email, etc).
The nice bonus feature is you can have certain sites default to containers. I had a paid YouTube account for a while, for example, so having any YouTube link open in my personal account was nice for not getting hit with ads on initial click due to my default Gmail not being the right one.
There's also a plugin[2] that will make any new tab default to whatever the first tab listed is. Really great for if you want to have a whole browser window dedicated to one container.
Also adding to this - you can set up container-specific proxies with "Container proxy" addon. This is great for when you want to ensure your connection is going over a private network, for instance if you have a regular torrent website (or porn or whatever) - you can configure it to automatically open in a container, like this Facebook addon - but when it opens - it will only connect to the endpoint over a proxy. If you're not connected, it fails.
Works really well with Mullvad which has a SOCKS proxy setup only available when connected.
Great for work connections too, I've setup all work/business websites to auto-open in a "work" container which I've created a local bridge proxy for to ensure my work connections are always over the corporate VPN.
This is also really good if you consult or work with many customers - you can start to build a catalogue of containers with specific settings for those customers.
What I've been doing was to set up a browser profile (local) for each main context. If I have a set of work accounts (google, github, etc.), I have a 'work' profile for it. This isolates all cookies related to 'work' at once, as well as bookmarks, saved tabs, extensions, and settings. It's a total context switcher.
Tooting my own horn :). Session Boss [1] saves the container information as part of the session and can restore the tabs in their respective containers. I use it to maintain multiple Gmail accounts and other email accounts in different containers.
Along with the Facebook Container I use multi-account containers to keep a Google, Microsoft, and Amazon container as well. I included all of their children companies in the parent containers (like GitHub in Microsoft, YouTube in Google). It's sobering seeing how much of the internet shows up in one of these four containers.
I just recently discovered a tip that finally made Firefox multiple windows usable. When you want to restart the browser and save tabs across all windows, you use Quit command from menu (or Ctrl+Q) and not the window X button (Alt+F4).
Damn I also hate the Google accounts mayhem. I will look into those containers.
Right now I manually type ?authuser=1 into my URLs to have Google Docs open in the right account, but this breaks when I restart the browser and the page reloads with the wrong account... Why Google removes this parameter from URLs after loading is beyond me.
The worst thing about the Google account switcher is logging into some third party sites sometimes just uses the first logged in account instead of showing the account switcher, so I can't log into the correct account without logging out of all the Google accounts.
Is the Firefox implementation different from Chrome? I don't think Chrome allows you to default links to specific profiles but I have used this feature in Chrome for a while to separate work and personal profiles to sandbox Chrome instances.
I use Chrome on Windows 10 at work because we're a gsuite shop and that's just what we do (I don't do personal things on company resources). I use Firefox on Debian everywhere else because Fuck Google.
Why do you hate the Google account switched for Gmail? It keeps all of my Gmail-attached sites isolated in Chrome and is easy to use on desktop (non-existent on Android Chrome unfortunately).
I tried it but it doesn't seem to work. I clicked a new "Work" container, then went to mail.google.com, and it instantly took me out of the container.
And then when I click back to the work container and try to access mail.google.com I get:
"400. That’s an error.
The server cannot process the request because it is malformed. It should not be retried. That’s all we know."
Bug? It seems like a really messy UI. Why can't they make Multi-Account Containers work just like Facebook Container? Or have make 1 window == 1 container?
Multi-Account Containers with Containerize is an unbeatable combo. Until Chrome gets something like this (I doubt it), I'm never leaving Firefox because of it.
Does this work with Firefox Sync? I'd love to have different bookmarks/cookies/accounts/etc. for work and home but use the same sync account - sometimes I work from home and want to use my work profile, but also don't want my home bookmarks showing up when I share my screen at work.
Last I checked, I'd have to enumerate every Google domain and subdomain, which just seemed like too much work. But if others have already done this, itd be easy to just use theirs.
I use the 'Containerise' plugin along with the following configuration (which I am constantly tweaking) to keep the big tech companies isolated from each other and the rest of the web.
I'm also increasingly using it to keep their various properties isolated from each other (eg. keeping Bing separate from the rest of Microsoft) to reduce tracking even further.
!*.atlassian.net , Atlassian
!*.bing.com , Microsoft Bing
!*.bitbucket.org , Atlassian
!*.github.com , Github
!*.google.com , Google
!*.imdb.com , Amazon Home/Personal
!*.linkedin.com , Microsoft LinkedIn
!*.live.com , Microsoft
!*.microsoft.com , Microsoft
!*.nytimes.com , New York Times
!*.reddit.com , Reddit
!*.twitter.com , Twitter
!*.youtube.com , Google
amazon.com , Amazon Home/Personal
console.aws.amazon.com , Amazon AWS
music.amazon.com , Amazon Home/Personal
news.ycombinator.com , Hacker News
smile.amazon.com , Amazon Home/Personal
www.amazon.com , Amazon Home/Personal
Oh wow. I used containers for a while, but the official plugin for managing them was awful. You had to go to the site, set the container, then click an approve button the _next_ time you went to it. Took forever to get things set up, and it never synced the settings despite claiming it would. I'm going to give this one a try. Thanks!
While I do agree with some reply-ers that @pkulak's critical wording was a bit strong in the sibling comment here, I have been incredibly frustrated with the default "Multi-Account Containers" add-on.
They have a facility to delete domains from a container, but no facility to add one: something I would've thought would be one of the first things one would want to implement. I understand resources are not always plentiful, but they've added a bunch of other features and yet this one is still lacking.
This is especially infuriating for "intermediate" domains forming parts of a redirect (Google have changed their subdomain structure recently and placing different Google properties into separate containers is now impossible with Multi-Account Containers due to their redirect structure)
The pattern-matching feature in `containerise` looks even better again.
Hoping it works as well as it looks; going to give it a try now.
This add-on has the same problem as Temporary containers. If you want to isolate Facebook and click a link to Spotify it will open Spotify in the Facebook container :(
So far only the Google/FB container add-ons do this right.
How bizarre that I desperately try to contain these monsters in digital cages, keeping them on a VPN leash, carefully adding plugins, trying to maintain delicate balance. Sometimes I try too hard, the monsters are offended, throw errors, hide the contents away. Sometimes I miss something, and they devour my privacy bit by bit, unnoticed. I spend sleepless nights scouring the internet for new codes, secret browser options, complex combinations of obscure settings.
And when I finally fall asleep, I dream of internet without the monsters.
I am hard pressed to think of any other website in the 25 year history of the WWW that was so abusive of its users that web browsers had to start inventing features to protect user from it.
I love this Facebook container. Love to see the Facebook container mark also on other websites trying to track me.
I also use the Firefox multi-account containers to set a temporary container for every new tab. To not lose logins etc I'm websites I visit frequently, I set up dedicated containers for those. Work very well.
Anyone else with experience of the Firefox multi-account container extension?
To do this for all sites you can enable First Party Isolation if Firefox by toggling privacy.firstparty.isolate in about:config, or have a UI button that toggles is through an addon [1]. I've been using it for years and it only seems to break some payment processors, and only rarely.
This is definitely convenient for now, but the shifting browser ecosystem (along with default security changes in Safari and proposed changes in Chrome) is driving the development and adoption of server-side tracking solutions. This is great for the short-term, but I imagine it won't be relevant much longer.
There's a reason why Segment just sold for $3.2 billion... [edited to add: They offer a single integration point and will proxy your data server-side to hundreds of other companies.]
Indeed, I'm getting increasingly skeptical that a technical solution is sufficient to fighting surveillance capitalism. Looking forward to see some serious GDPR fines.
How does this stop facebook from tracking you? I'm fairly certain that on facebook, google, everyone, etc tracking is largely through processing request logs to gstatic.com or fbcdn.net for example with a referrer header saying what site you are visiting, your source IP and various other things to fingerprint the request.
While I appreciate this kind of solutions, in my brain all I can think is: what the hell is wrong with the web today?
I mean, what did we do to ourselves? How the hell did we ruin the web experience this much?
Looking back in the 90s, the web wasn't the most pretty thing but how simple it was. You went to a news website and that was it. Click, read, the end.
These days however:
- Go to a news/content website
- wait for the 40MB of useless CSS and JS "minified" crap
to download.
- Agree with 2 or 3 huge popups to allow collect your data
- Get a new popup to make you disable your ad-blocker plugin. And if you disable it, you need to refresh the page all over again.
- Get a "subscribe to our newsletter" popup
- Get tracked by amazons, facebooks, etc...
- And once you finally click on an article.... get another popup to subscribe to their premium paid content...
Seriously, we broke the web, and now we are trying to fix it with putting more plugins and tools on top of this problem. I just feel the web is fighting against us and our browsers, and in the end everyone will loose.
I tried containers for a while, but I didn't really trust the separation, and I also wanted the browser to be separated from my regular homedir/user.
So now I have a script to create/remove new UNIX users with a pre-configured firefox profile and a script to run the firefox under that user.
It has some quirks, but also some benefits. Mainly that the browser doesn't have access to all files on my computer, and the separation between profiles is enforced by the OS, which I trust more.
I'm loving Firefox Containers for various use cases, but is running Google/Facebook in them worth the extra hassle if you use uBO/Privacy Badger? It blocks all that stuff anyway.
I have a use case where I'm using 6 different amazon accounts which I'd have loved to use with containers controlled by bookmarks (I use Firefox keyword bookmarks a lot for productivity).
The best out of the box way you could do it with Firefox is to setup different profiles and switch between them, however, while there is a many-to-many relationship between website and containers, there is none between bookmarks and containers, thus you'd have to manually switch to the right container.
My workaround for this was to setup a thin server that redirects amazon<\d+>.localhost to amazon.com. Then, on Firefox, I bind each amazon(1-6).localhost to its own container and configure it to always open this site in its container.
Now every time I type "amazon2" it will open up amazon.com in its right container.
Would have wished to have bookmarks granularity as part of Firefox, but for my use case, this is the best I could come up with in few minutes of work.
I absolutely love the containers feature in general, and the Facebook one in particular.
One severe use case limitation (for me) involves using containers to separate work/home accounts. I am a developer, so I do a lot of screen sharing / presenting.
Theoretically, I could use Firefox containers to separate things into "work" and "personal."
However, all containers have a shared autocomplete history for the URL bar.
1. Suppose I visit "GirlsXXX.com" in my "Personal" container
2. The next day at work, I am screen-sharing and using my "Work" container
3. I type in "github.com" so that I can visit Github.com
4. As I type "g-i-t-h-u-b", "GirlsXXX.com" will be one of the autocomplete suggestions after I've types "g" and "gi"
[+] [-] mmcclure|5 years ago|reply
The nice bonus feature is you can have certain sites default to containers. I had a paid YouTube account for a while, for example, so having any YouTube link open in my personal account was nice for not getting hit with ads on initial click due to my default Gmail not being the right one.
There's also a plugin[2] that will make any new tab default to whatever the first tab listed is. Really great for if you want to have a whole browser window dedicated to one container.
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...
[2] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sticky-window...
[+] [-] Mandatum|5 years ago|reply
Works really well with Mullvad which has a SOCKS proxy setup only available when connected.
Great for work connections too, I've setup all work/business websites to auto-open in a "work" container which I've created a local bridge proxy for to ensure my work connections are always over the corporate VPN.
This is also really good if you consult or work with many customers - you can start to build a catalogue of containers with specific settings for those customers.
Container Proxy addon:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/container-pro...
[+] [-] Fats|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ww520|5 years ago|reply
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/session-boss/
[+] [-] Timpy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shawnb576|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jethro_tell|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dngray|5 years ago|reply
https://medium.com/@stoically/enhance-your-privacy-in-firefo...
[+] [-] jmiskovic|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] npteljes|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moritonal|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] remram|5 years ago|reply
Right now I manually type ?authuser=1 into my URLs to have Google Docs open in the right account, but this breaks when I restart the browser and the page reloads with the wrong account... Why Google removes this parameter from URLs after loading is beyond me.
[+] [-] lern_too_spel|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] typicalbender|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phjesusthatguy3|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neycoda|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dheera|5 years ago|reply
And then when I click back to the work container and try to access mail.google.com I get:
"400. That’s an error.
The server cannot process the request because it is malformed. It should not be retried. That’s all we know."
Bug? It seems like a really messy UI. Why can't they make Multi-Account Containers work just like Facebook Container? Or have make 1 window == 1 container?
[+] [-] nunez|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sleavey|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neogodless|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KingFelix|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mackrevinack|5 years ago|reply
thanks for the sticky windows tip
[+] [-] rattray|5 years ago|reply
Last I checked, I'd have to enumerate every Google domain and subdomain, which just seemed like too much work. But if others have already done this, itd be easy to just use theirs.
[+] [-] smusamashah|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kmundnic|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oldandboring|5 years ago|reply
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/containerise/
I'm also increasingly using it to keep their various properties isolated from each other (eg. keeping Bing separate from the rest of Microsoft) to reduce tracking even further.
You get the idea. Really powerful.[+] [-] pkulak|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lucideer|5 years ago|reply
While I do agree with some reply-ers that @pkulak's critical wording was a bit strong in the sibling comment here, I have been incredibly frustrated with the default "Multi-Account Containers" add-on.
They have a facility to delete domains from a container, but no facility to add one: something I would've thought would be one of the first things one would want to implement. I understand resources are not always plentiful, but they've added a bunch of other features and yet this one is still lacking.
This is especially infuriating for "intermediate" domains forming parts of a redirect (Google have changed their subdomain structure recently and placing different Google properties into separate containers is now impossible with Multi-Account Containers due to their redirect structure)
The pattern-matching feature in `containerise` looks even better again.
Hoping it works as well as it looks; going to give it a try now.
[+] [-] Spivak|5 years ago|reply
So far only the Google/FB container add-ons do this right.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] axismundi|5 years ago|reply
And when I finally fall asleep, I dream of internet without the monsters.
[+] [-] JadoJodo|5 years ago|reply
- Temporary Containers[0]
- Google Container[1]
- Google Container w/ Integrations (YouTube, AdTech, Apps, etc)[2]
- Reddit Container[3]
There are a few others[4] as well, but I've found the Temporary Containers solves the 80%.
--
[0] - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-con...
[1] - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-contai...
[2] - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-contai...
[3] - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/contain-reddi...
[4] - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search/?q=Container
[+] [-] dotancohen|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cooljacob204|5 years ago|reply
Is Google still planning to destroy adblock with Manifest V3?
[+] [-] krullix|5 years ago|reply
I also use the Firefox multi-account containers to set a temporary container for every new tab. To not lose logins etc I'm websites I visit frequently, I set up dedicated containers for those. Work very well.
Anyone else with experience of the Firefox multi-account container extension?
[+] [-] 0-_-0|5 years ago|reply
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/first-party-i...
[+] [-] marketingtech|5 years ago|reply
There's a reason why Segment just sold for $3.2 billion... [edited to add: They offer a single integration point and will proxy your data server-side to hundreds of other companies.]
[+] [-] anticristi|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulv|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmnicolas|5 years ago|reply
Most of the sites I visit seem not to recognize me without cookies but I always wonder if it's just a "ploy" to make me feel untracked.
While I'm at it, anyone has good resources on how not to be finger printed (without going full Tor browser)? Do I have to disable Javascript?
[+] [-] richy_|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] one2know|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jedberg|5 years ago|reply
But my biggest issue is Firefox performance on MacOS. The only reason it's not my primary browser is because Safari is just so much better.
What I wonder is, is this just me, or does everyone have this problem?
[+] [-] phatbyte|5 years ago|reply
I mean, what did we do to ourselves? How the hell did we ruin the web experience this much?
Looking back in the 90s, the web wasn't the most pretty thing but how simple it was. You went to a news website and that was it. Click, read, the end.
These days however:
- Go to a news/content website
- wait for the 40MB of useless CSS and JS "minified" crap to download.
- Agree with 2 or 3 huge popups to allow collect your data
- Get a new popup to make you disable your ad-blocker plugin. And if you disable it, you need to refresh the page all over again.
- Get a "subscribe to our newsletter" popup
- Get tracked by amazons, facebooks, etc...
- And once you finally click on an article.... get another popup to subscribe to their premium paid content...
Seriously, we broke the web, and now we are trying to fix it with putting more plugins and tools on top of this problem. I just feel the web is fighting against us and our browsers, and in the end everyone will loose.
[+] [-] megous|5 years ago|reply
So now I have a script to create/remove new UNIX users with a pre-configured firefox profile and a script to run the firefox under that user.
It has some quirks, but also some benefits. Mainly that the browser doesn't have access to all files on my computer, and the separation between profiles is enforced by the OS, which I trust more.
[+] [-] StavrosK|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] almog|5 years ago|reply
The best out of the box way you could do it with Firefox is to setup different profiles and switch between them, however, while there is a many-to-many relationship between website and containers, there is none between bookmarks and containers, thus you'd have to manually switch to the right container.
My workaround for this was to setup a thin server that redirects amazon<\d+>.localhost to amazon.com. Then, on Firefox, I bind each amazon(1-6).localhost to its own container and configure it to always open this site in its container. Now every time I type "amazon2" it will open up amazon.com in its right container.
Would have wished to have bookmarks granularity as part of Firefox, but for my use case, this is the best I could come up with in few minutes of work.
[+] [-] JohnBooty|5 years ago|reply
One severe use case limitation (for me) involves using containers to separate work/home accounts. I am a developer, so I do a lot of screen sharing / presenting.
Theoretically, I could use Firefox containers to separate things into "work" and "personal."
However, all containers have a shared autocomplete history for the URL bar.
1. Suppose I visit "GirlsXXX.com" in my "Personal" container 2. The next day at work, I am screen-sharing and using my "Work" container 3. I type in "github.com" so that I can visit Github.com 4. As I type "g-i-t-h-u-b", "GirlsXXX.com" will be one of the autocomplete suggestions after I've types "g" and "gi"
[+] [-] residentfoam|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fractalf|5 years ago|reply