[ssorallen]

Chrome’s Profiles are the #1 reason I use it over Firefox. If Firefox had as complete of an implementation as Chrome then I would consider switching, but until then Firefox is a non-starter for me.

I use all 3 of these profiles all day every day for work:

* one personal profile logged into personal Google

* one work profile managed by the company, logged into company Google

* one development profile with all the debugging extensions installed, like React and Redux tools (they require access to all pages all the time)

[BlackLotus89]

Why not use the firefox profiles?

I also use multiple profiles. My setup is as fallows.

  firefox -ProfileManager

Create 2 profiles work and private.

Change the theme of work to orange and private to black.

Create two .desktop files and append to the Exec line -P work (or private) and the Name to include (work)

I have work on desktop 5 and private on desktop 8 and 9.

Works like a charme for me. Additional bonus. Use container to add additional seperation.

[Jaepa]

So I use this as well, but it utterly fails the elderly grandmother test.

Its not well known. Its not easily accessibly for non-technical users. & its not clear which profile you are currently using when you are using it.

[cassianoleal]

Or, just open `about:profiles` and press buttons.

[zelphirkalt]

They probably don't know, because Firefox doesn't bump your nose into the fact, that it has profiles.

[nicoburns]

In Chrome I can switch from one profile to another as fast as opening a new tab (i.e. instantly). Can Firefox do that?

[maxloh]

But it is just 2 clicks to do the same thing in Chrome (and those two clicks are really fast thanks to Fitts's law).

[vi2837]

I use it by the same way. FF is the best!

[tenacious_tuna]

I use Firefox's container tabs all the time, which segment exactly the same way as profiles (albiet with the same extension pool). Personally I prefer having blended tabs in a single window, or having additional segregation; I keep Amazon punted out to it's own container, as well as social media. I know it won't stop all the cross-identificaiton, but it should at least help.

[benjamir]

headscratch I used profiles with Ff for ages... what is the difference to Chrome's?

[cassianoleal]

In Chrome there's an icon you click to switch. Honestly, if someone would create a FF extension that was just that, it would probably cover 90% of what's considered superior in Chrome.

[jeltz]

The usability and discoverability. I use almost exclusively Firefox but I have stopped using the profiles since the UX isn't good enough.

[weaksauce]

The only thing I can think of is that the UI is not as nice as chromes for switching? in chrome you can switch the profile from a menu option and there can be more than one profile active at a time with separate everything including extensions and bookmarks.

in firefox you don't get that easy switch and I am not sure the gui for the profiles is enabled by default. you have to manually start up firefox with a -P flag from the command line to get the profile manager. And you only get one profile active at a time.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-...

That said, 90% of the time you can use container tabs and it is almost the equivalent of that.

[thomasedwards]

When I open Chrome, I can open any profile straight away from the menu. On Mac, there’s just one Chrome icon.

When I open Firefox, I have to go to a page that looks like a developer debug mode, and then open a new profile in a new Firefox instance. I now have two Firefox icons in my dock. I normally work with three profiles, so now I have three Firefox icons in my dock all called Firefox. 66.6% of the time I press the wrong one.

The problem is that Firefox has to be at least as good as Chrome to succeed. Being _almost_ as good as Chrome means people will just use Chrome.

[cryptonector]

What's wrong with Firefox Containers?

[thomasedwards]

It doesn’t sync your entire experience. I have a completely different setup for each profile, and then I use Containers _within_ each profile. They’re not the same thing.

[baq]

about:profiles