Multi-Account Containers

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

by throw0101c • 3 years ago

703 248 3 years ago

support.mozilla.org

ryan-duve• 3 years ago

We use different AWS accounts for different purposes at work. It would be an extreme productivity loss if I had to go back to using something other than Firefox's containers.

handedness5• 3 years ago

It's not an identical feature, but I have some workflows which require Chromium and compartmentalization between a multiple accounts, and Brave's profiles aren't a bad alternative.

zamadatix3• 3 years ago

For someone that hasn't used Brave in a while - what's the difference between Brave profiles and profiles in other Chromium browsers?

bspammer• 3 years ago

Chrome itself has profiles, which I use for exactly the same use case (multiple AWS logins)

trusz• 3 years ago

The Arc browser [1] could be nice alternative as it handles profiles pretty smooth.

[1] https://arc.net/

eliaspro• 3 years ago

This site basically says nothing except "sign up".

toastercat• 3 years ago

This smells like pure marketing, incl the company's website. I'd rather use an open-source browser like Firefox.

albert_e2• 3 years ago

Other than separate windows... is it very different if we use different Chrome user profiles to keep the saved logins, sessions, and cookies separate?

MiguelHudnandez• 3 years ago

This does work. Not quite as nice as Firefox’s multi-account containers because tabs can’t co-mingle in the same window. But totally serviceable.

I use a combination of both every day at work.

I like chrome for some things too because you can make a single-site-browser window in chrome, so certain websites can be treated like first class applications in the alt tab menu.

hardwaresofton4• 3 years ago

Hey if you haven't heard of Simple Tab Groups, also consider adding that to your setup:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/simple-tab-gr...

I use them both together and it's amazing.

pyro2927• 3 years ago

If you use AWS SSO, I wrote an extension to automatically change containers when you log in.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/aws-sso-conta...

handedness5• 3 years ago

Some (of many) good previous discussions:

2020: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22047213

2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15256603

password43213• 3 years ago

What would be needed to support this in private browsing mode? I would like to keep things separate and toss everything when I'm done.

yoavm• 3 years ago

Private browsing mode is essentially a new temporary container. It let's you keep things separate and toss them when you're done.

password43213• 3 years ago

Yes, and I'd like to use more than one simultaneously.

masklinn• 3 years ago

The temporary containers extension is probably what you want. MAC is for separate but “permanent” environments.

jbverschoor• 3 years ago

Last week I finally removed some bugs from my multi-instance chrome scripts on macOS.

I basically have different applications of chrome, each with a different profile. They wacht have a different app icon, browser color, and extensions.

It helps me focus a lot to have a different application (cmd-tab entry) for dev, media, general browsing.

Social media and other time traps are blocked on my general and dev browser.

Works very well I have to say. It copies Chrome using clonefiles (CoW on apfs) to save space.

The only thing is that updating goes through the main browser (automatic updates are buggy in this case). And I have to codesign when there’s an update, but the scripts take care of that.

kibwen• 3 years ago

Can anyone clarify what this provides compared to the built-in container support in Firefox? On stock Firefox, it appears that I can do everything listed in the documentation above, with the exception that this extension appears to allow you to configure a domain to automatically open in a given container. Is that the only difference?

thomastjeffery9• 3 years ago

This is the user interface to that built-in container support.

sdk-7• 3 years ago

Mainly these two things: * Assign sites to a specific per container * Set VPN/Proxy per container

ZiiS• 3 years ago

It is really just the eaiest way to turn on the built in container support.

JW_00000• 3 years ago

Very useful if you have multiple Outlook accounts (e.g. school, work, personal), because outlook.com doesn't allow you to switch between accounts without logging out and back in.

SamuelAdams• 3 years ago

Or you hop between different AWS accounts.

matsemann3• 3 years ago

Or gcp or other Google products. They technically supports it by appending different authuser query params, but whenever you click something it's bound to choose the wrong one.

pram• 3 years ago

I still can’t believe you can only be logged into one. Also when I re-log in it shows all the tutorial pop up boxes on everything EVERY SINGLE TIME.

icapybara2• 3 years ago

I tried to like this the other day but it was a real hassle.

I have 3 accounts on a website. I thought I could setup 3 different containers, one for each account. But it turns out that switching between containers is not simple. Whenever I tried to switch, I got a pop up from Firefox asking me if I was really sure I wanted to switch my default container for that website. Sometimes it sent me into a redirect loop with the prompt also. I did some googling and found that the consensus was that containers simply aren’t meant to be used that way.

Firefox Multi Account Containers seem to assume you will always use one container for one website, and you can’t easily use multiple containers for a single site. Or at least, it’s very inconvenient to do so.

echelon3• 3 years ago

Ugh, same. I thought I was the only one that found these to be impossibly buggy.

The container setup/management UI is glitchy and it often forgets! containers that were created. It feels like a hack week project that got shipped to production.

Despite having containers, Firefox sometimes wants to open the managed website in your current window. Or doesn't ask you at all when you have multiple containers for the same site.

There's a lack of distinction between containerized / non-containerized windows. The colored tabs do not work or break down, leaving you in a mysterious or even dangerous state.

The integration with password management tools is obviously rough. But coupled with the browser's own attempts at session management, plus containers, it's a UX nightmare to log into the right container.

The last time I checked this out was last year. Maybe it's better now? Given Mozilla staffing, though, I'd guess not.

I really want this to work, but the current solution is worse than none at all. I've made do with keeping multiple browsers for different tasks.

Be careful if you use this. It breaks unexpectedly and that can lead to the wrong actions being taken in the wrong accounts.

thomastjeffery9• 3 years ago

The struggle is that the container addon does its own syncing, separate from the browser-wide Firefox account sync (that decides the soon should be installed).

Because syncing is a separate step - yet it still happens concurrently/unpredictably in the background - there is no avoiding the default new user flow that creates 4 default containers at install.

phpisthebest3• 3 years ago

>The container setup/management UI is glitchy and it often forgets! containers that were created.

been running it for years, never once has it forgot containers...

>Firefox sometimes wants to open the managed website in your current window. Or doesn't ask you at all when you have multiple containers for the same site.

ok, so you right click and have it reopen in the correct container, not a big deal. Though I cant say I have ever had this problem either despite using it very day all day, 16 hrs + per say with lots of containers and tabs (often over 100 tabs open)

>The integration with password management tools is obviously rough.

I use bitwarden, have no issue using it inside of various containers

mostlysimilar• 3 years ago

Interesting, I accomplish this just fine and it's my primary use for containers in Firefox. I don't know what your workflow is like, but I just click the "+" tab button, select one of the other containers I want, and a new tab opens in that container. Type address of website and continue as normal.

dabeeeenster• 3 years ago

Wait; what's the point of them if they're not meant to be used against the same site?!

matsemann3• 3 years ago

They are. My guess is that person is doing something wrong.

thomastjeffery9• 3 years ago

To isolate the cookies and JavaScript of a domain from other domains.

For example, Facebook is notorious for reading third-party site cookies and vice-versa. A collection of associations (X Facebook user visited Y sites) is then sold as a portfolio for targeted advertising.

I agree this isn't the feature that provides the most utility; it's simply the one that was originally at the front of the devs' minds.

lost_tourist2• 3 years ago

isolation of cookies and other data between websites. although now I think firefox does that per tab anyway&site combo nowadays anyway. I mainly use it for multiple reddit accounts and gmail accounts. also good when combined with cookie auto delete for test purpose between testing site changes "freshly".

Larrikin• 3 years ago

I use mine for organization (all banking sites are separate from shopping websites) and to cordon off toxic sites like Facebook.

matsemann3• 3 years ago

What you're describing is the main use case for this. Are you sure you're using it correctly? You're not supposed to change default container for that webpage all the time or anything like that.

I for instance have a bookmark for a page. I right click it and select which container to opening it in. I often open it in different containers, have different tabs of it open at the same time etc.

Spunkie• 3 years ago

I went through the same process when I tried it a few weeks ago for multiple GitHub accounts.

I also uninstalled the extension after fumbling around with it for 5-10 minutes and not being able to open multiple containers of github without it forgetting what I just tried to setup or constantly bugging me about switching the default container.

icapybara2• 3 years ago

Based on some of the comments, maybe I'm "holding it wrong." I don't know, but I spent a good 20-30 minutes trying to get this sorted out before deciding it wasn't worth the time.

Love Firefox, and I like what the Multi-Account Containers are trying to be, but it just didn't work for me. And it sounds like I'm not the only one who's run into this issue.

thomastjeffery9• 3 years ago

Unintuitively, you want to have no default set for that domain, and you want to open an empty tab of that container type (by long clicking the new tab button or clicking the container addon button itself to get a list). Once you have a container open, middle-clicking the new tab button will open an empty tab in that container.

I agree that the UX is horrendous. Most of that is a byproduct of implementing it as an addon instead of a feature.

M2Ys4U• 3 years ago

I think this only happens if you use the "Always open this site in container" function.

I use MACs with a bunch of different AWS accounts for work, and the only papercut is having to right-click my bookmarks and choosing which container to open the console in (as opposed to having MACs integrated with bookmarks themselves)

mmm332312• 3 years ago

You absolutely can. Open a new tab of containerA and login. Open a new tab of containerB and login with a different account. I think there's an option somewhere that allows you to select "always open [website] in [container]" which might be triggering that popup.

quickthrower2• 3 years ago

Great for testing logins on web apps. I used a FF plugin to do this, I presume having this in FF itself natively is new.

thomastjeffery9• 3 years ago

I've been using this since it was new. I'm very frustrated to say the UI/UX hasn't seen any significant update.

Containers are still synced separately, so any fresh install of Firefox will have the tutorial UX and the default 4 containers, even after syncing.

Also, address bar completion is still monolithic, making it very easy to accidentally open a site in an undesired container. That can be worked around by adding every domain to a default container, but most of the utility of containers is to use several for a single domain, i.e. multiple email accounts each with their own container instances.

Containers are a feature I find very valuable, but they really need their UX to be a core browser feature, not an addon.

herklwlkjwher4• 3 years ago

container sync has been a thing for a while, but you have to enable it: https://i.imgur.com/UBj3TjW.png

fooqux2• 3 years ago

Where do you find that at? I just looked in both the Sync settings and Container settings and I do not see that setting.

thomastjeffery9• 3 years ago

Yes, and the flow is as I described.

1. Install Firefox.

2. Log in to fresh Firefox instance.

3. Let browser-wide sync happen.

4. Sync installs multi-account containers addon.

5. Four empty default containers are created. New user welcome flow is active.

6. Sign in to multi-account containers addon. Wait for container sync to do its thing.

7. Containers sync invisibly in the background.

- Default containers that you deleted before (in the instance you are syncing from) still exist in this fresh instance.

- New user welcome UX is still active.

jokoon• 3 years ago

Agree, it's also quite awkward to link a domain to a container, and sometimes it doesn't work well, for example gmail because it also uses Google.com (I want to separate Gmail and my Google search)

roter• 3 years ago

You can open a bookmark in a chosen tab via the context menu when right-clicking on a bookmark in e.g. your toolbar. I use this to separate Gmail accounts. I use private search for Google search.

blibble• 3 years ago

it also has about 3-4 different UIs, all of which have very slightly different options

brilliant functionality, just the UI is beyond awful

rraghur2• 3 years ago

Is there a good native way now to set up url patterns (domain, sub domain, regex etc) to open in a specified container?

I've been using a non add-on store addon for this.. and no idea why something basic like that would not be in the core or this add-on

jck• 3 years ago

I am not sure what you mean by non addon store addon. Containerise is on amo and supports glob and regex patterns.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/containerise/

throwaway4PP• 3 years ago

I use Containers with Transitions (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/containers-wi...)

It's a bit tedious to set it up at first but it's the only way I know of to get the following functionality:

With GMail open in a "google" container, non-google domain links open in non-google containers (configurable which container if any). Google domain links (drive, calendar, maps, etc) open in the google container.

Once setup, this means in your "standard" or non-specified container you can log out of all google services and stop their most explicit tracking of you through simple account cookies being read across the web while you search, etc. No longer when you visit sites that allow sign-in with google will your account name be auto-suggested, because the sites don't have that level of tracking info when you're browsing and searching outside of the google container. Viewing random trash yt videos will no longer sway the recs you get in yt.

The downside is that my google searches, done outside the google gulag, run into captcha prompts b/c I guess google search doesn't expect that much consistent traffic from someone who isn't signed into one of their services.

edit: this also means that you can, for example, containerize gmaps and set it up so that non-google domain links followed out of maps open in a non-google container. clicking a link to a business's website from their gmaps page no longers propagates your google account cookie to their site, etc. it opens in a different container, automatically.

neltnerb• 3 years ago

You don't like the UI? It feels like a core feature to me, the only serious friction I have is that I also use temporary containers which overrides my selection to open a certain site in a particular container.

But you just tell it not to open a temporary containers for that domain and you're good.

So really I've only seen this take much thought when combined with temporary containers.

UberFly• 3 years ago

Sadly the Temporary Containers extension seems abandoned at this point. No updates in two years.

cmcode• 3 years ago

I had similar complaints about the UX for the built-in containers extension, so as a labor of love, I wrote a helper extension to make containers a little more intuitive:

https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/containers-helper

The simplest improvement is that you can use e.g. Alt+Shift+D to open a little popup and start typing to find your container(s).

You can also use the extension to import and export containers, as well as some other features.

The extension respects your privacy completely and is not programmed to make any outbound network requests.

vladvasiliu• 3 years ago

This functionality seems to be partially included in the official extension now. There's a "search container name field", but it's not active when you open the pop-up (hence the partial).

I don't know when it arrived, I'm pretty sure it hasn't been there too long, but I don't pay too much attention to this extension's UI. I'm running Firefox 109.

jhoechtl• 3 years ago

Mozilla is on Googles drip. You can't expect this feature seeing much love it's against the donors intents.

kaba03• 3 years ago

And that drip is just as important for google to avoid an insanely huge monopoly lawsuit, so this is just the usual shitting on certain open-source projects without any reason.

zwayhowder• 3 years ago

Fortunately there are some cool extensions that do improve that logic. My favourite uses a new container for every AWS SSO login, so I can have multiple AWS accounts and/or roles on the go at the same time.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/aws-sso-conta...

But completely agree, this should be a capability. It's like how Google Chrome profiles don't have the "open in another profile" menu option until you have two profiles already opened.

jerryzh• 3 years ago

the container is definitely synced at least for over a year. since I bought my laptop last year and everything is synced

heresie-dabord• 3 years ago

Firefox MAC is one of the first extensions that I install, after uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, and Cookie Autodelete.

I install MAC despite my dislike for what the UI has become.

The UX was fine until Firefox started pushing its VPN service via this extension. I encourage the use of VPNs, that isn't my objection. But now the installation of MAC requires too many clicks just to configure it, and some of those clicks are to dismiss things that I didn't request.

Good UX practices:

    1 = offer reasonable defaults

    2 = be visually intelligible (make it easy to recognise borders, boxes, controls)

    3 = make it easy to access important properties (don't bury or hide what people need)

    4 = don't be annoying, nagging, exhausting, or confounding

    5 = favour exposing features in an organised way

    6 = let the user customise

The MAC extension suffers in points 2, 3, and 4 during installation. Now that Firefox has forced the grouping of all extensions in an Extension folder that cannot be moved, we now have a problem with point 6 too.

sdk-7• 3 years ago

You can still pin an extension to the toolbar and if it's already pinned Firefox will honor your setting in Fx 109+. IIRC, we can also in the extension manifest.json force the addon to show in the toolbar by default.

jchw2• 3 years ago

Pretty useful. Something I learned at some point was that you can actually combine this with Wireguard: If you dig into the extension, there's a feature that lets you set a SOCKS5 proxy for a profile. You can then point it to a running Wireproxy to go from SOCKS5 to Wireguard. Could be handy.

mic-kul• 3 years ago

@jchw that's neat! You've seen this in source or is it accessible somehow from the UI?

jchw2• 3 years ago

Accessible via the UI: click into the extension, click the right arrow next to a container, select "Manage This Container", then "Advanced Proxy Settings" and you can enter a SOCKS5 URI. And of course, this requires the aforementioned extension, not just the built-in container tabs feature. (Confusingly, Firefox does have this feature "cooked in", presumably they just expose a bunch of it via WebExtension APIs so that things like Multi-Account Containers can work.)

grepfru_it2• 3 years ago

Also look at FoxyProxy which can enable unique proxy configurations on a per-domain basis

slickdork3• 3 years ago

I've been using this for a few years now and love it. I wish for two things.

1) i wish there was a way to automatically delete cookies/cache/history from specific containers every time. My personal container needs cookies and logins saved. My other containers don't need persistent cookies.

2) I've always wished for protonvpn to apply to only specific containers. Reading this now though, I see firefox's VPN does that so that's very cool, I might need to look into their vpn.

mech422• 3 years ago

I combine containers with profiles to achieve this... I have totally separate profiles for: 'temp' (delete everything on close) 'shopping' (containers for my common stores) 'finance' (containers for banks, etc)

Gives a lot of flexibility, and I'm a lot less nervous opening stuff in 'temp' session when I know everything else is safely in totally different profiles/directories.

yipeedipee2• 3 years ago

What you want is the Temporary Containers addon: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/temporary-con...

It will let you open containers that trash cookies on close. You can also set certain URL's to always open in a tmp container which is useful for sites that only let you read x amount of article per month.

johnchristopher• 3 years ago

How is it different/better from incognito mode ?

herklwlkjwher4• 3 years ago

i use this, it sounds like in a way inverted from the way you do -- i have containers for any site that i want to maintain persistence on, then default to a tmp container

JadoJodo• 3 years ago

I use this and it works well. You can also add a prefix to your temporary containers. I prefixed mine with “Mr. Meseeks #<Container Number”, which made it pretty hilarious if you also use the “kill tab after time” setting: Mr. Meseeks tabs closing in the background, completing their purpose.

sickmartian• 3 years ago

for 1) do look into the temporary containers extension.

ckastner2• 3 years ago

Cookie AutoDelete is great for custom site-specific cookie policies and is container-aware, see

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookie-autode...

slickdork3• 3 years ago

thanks, i installed this. I couldn't find a way to set it to 'always delete everything from container x and never anything from container y' though.

Jiocus• 3 years ago

The Mozilla VPN is a relabelled service by Mullvad VPN.

sdk-7• 3 years ago

It has its own client application so it's a little more than simply relabelling a product. I find Mozilla client easier for less techy people so I guess both products complement themselve by targeting a different subset of the population.

reyqn• 3 years ago

You can apply a per container proxy, so if you run a proxy that goes through your vpn, you could do this with protonvpn. I do this with a ssh tunnel.

mozillamaxx• 3 years ago

In regards to #1 - we have a feature (WIP right now) that adds the ability to delete data (cache, cookies and local storage) per container. Look for that in a future release.

https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers/pull/249...

slickdork3• 3 years ago

Oh wonderful, this will be a very welcome feature for me. :) thanks!

jwuphysics• 3 years ago

Is there any way to change the keyboard shortcuts on the Multi Account Containers? Cmd+Alt+. is the default shortcut for 1Password on Linux.

dizhn• 3 years ago

You can take care of #1 the way people here suggested, but I believe you can also do it backwards by having firefox delete ALL cookies at exit and whitelisting some domain's cookies. (Cookies sand Site data, check "Delete cookies and site data when Firefox is closed" and hit Manage Exceptions right next to it to whitelist some domains)

For #2 you do not need Firefox's VPN service. I am using it with wireguard and a socks5 proxy on the other end. I have a 'proxy' container configured but you can have more than one container with proxy as well. (In advanced proxy settings the syntax is socks://10.0.99.82:1080 )

nickstinemates2• 3 years ago

Experience is still lacking compared to Chrome profiles. Chrome profiles are so much better UX wise than any other solution, especially the color coding of the window.

account-52• 3 years ago

Firefox does profiles too.

baggy_trough• 3 years ago

But only with command line switches and relaunching, right?

thomastjeffery9• 3 years ago

This is that.

sfmike5• 3 years ago

yup you log into a profile and then the containers and its profiles and settings are a child of that so you can use containers on different devices with same settings and containers

worble• 3 years ago

I'd argue it's far superior - no need to be switching windows constantly and setting the domain automatically loads that site in the correct context.

nickstinemates2• 3 years ago

Multiple windows for me is a feature, not a bug.

sfmike5• 3 years ago

could care less about UX care about the data segmentation of which firefox is miles ahead

kjsingh• 3 years ago

you can choose the color for container and it shows in ur tab

pbowyer• 3 years ago

I've used these for over a year. Where the experience falls short is when using OAuth flows where either the requestor or provider is in a different container.

E.g. Slack (work) => Twitter (social media) => ~~broken~~ as the redirect doesn't go back to the (work) container.

I can't think of a fix because any there is would break the privacy of containers.

thomastjeffery9• 3 years ago

You can right click a link, and open it in the other container. It's clunky, but has worked for me so far.

The UX for default containers could really benefit from some kind of context-awareness, but I'm not sure what that would look like.

I'm thinking an intermediary tab that gives you a list of default containers (instead of only a single option or none at all) to choose from when opening a domain. Then, maybe, you could set a default choice based on the originating container. Or maybe a tree of sub-containers... This is where addon-defined UX makes sense.

jedberg• 3 years ago

The workaround I've used is to open slack.com in the Google container, etc. Not ideal, but it works.

In some cases though I do have to switch my default browser to Chrome, log in, then switch it back.

starik36• 3 years ago

Love the feature and use it all the time. It would be great, if you could assign a home page to a container.

julianhul2• 3 years ago

Would be cool if each container could generate a unique browser fingerprint. Right now they are sharing the same fingerprint, which isn't great for privacy.

derbOac• 3 years ago

I think this is what the Temporary Containers extension does? For me, it's a fundamental part of my browsing at this point, what I install immediately after installing an adblocker.

I feel resentful that the Temporary Containers extension isn't available on mobile Firefox. To me it would be as if adblocking extensions wouldn't be available. It's one thing of many that seems really different about mobile Firefox, to a point where the cynical part of me feels like mobile Firefox is being obsequious to advertisers or something for some reason in a way desktop is not.

julianhul2• 3 years ago

Unfortunately the containers are all using the same fingerprint: https://github.com/stoically/temporary-containers/issues/51

sfmike5• 3 years ago

would pay for this feature, does anyone know of another extension that does this to be used in conjunction?

qwerty456127• 3 years ago

A killer feature. Once I have tried Forefox's containers I am not going way...

paisawalla• 3 years ago

I've been using distinct FF profiles to separate work browsing from personal browsing on the same machine. I give each profile a differently colored theme to visually separate the two and discourage accidentally using one profile for another's purpose.

Would multi-account containers be better for that workflow?

darksfall• 3 years ago

Succinctly yes, as this was what I was doing until recently.

I had about 6 or 7 Firefox profiles encompassing 2 of my businesses, clients, and some administration of my fiancée's companies she runs.

For each of my two businesses I had two separate profiles, one with personal accounts and a second I logged in with 'Admin' accounts for various services and infrastructure.

It was a little tedious, but it worked. However I would waste so much time tabbing through multiple Firefox windows working out what was the correct one for the job in hand.

Firefox Multi-Account containers got that down to two profiles, and I'd say I really only work 99% of the time in a single profile.

Simple Tab Groups is invaluable too to reduce the tab 'clutter' that comes from working out of a single profile/window.

Lastly as an added bonus, when I was comfortable with Multi-Account Containers, I successfully weened my fiancée off of Chrome and onto Firefox so she could flick between different accounts for those businesses she works with too.

thrwawy742• 3 years ago

This is so much more powerful than first party isolation in Chrome. Firefox is on the only browser with something like this. I love having multiple tabs open and logged into the same website with different accounts/cookies. I also use this in conjunction with Temporary Containers so every tab is a new container automatically. If I left-click a link it will navigate keeping the same container. If I control+click it will open the link in a new/separate container. Also I use another one called Container Proxy so some containers go out through different VPNs. As much as Mozilla is fucking up Firefox currently, this is the 1 thing no other browser does better.

0x49d12• 3 years ago

But why is this REALLY "more powerful than first party isolation"? I don't need this feature every day, in case I do - just create separate profile and it's easy to run it right from toolbar. The only usecase I can remember: specific domains can be automatically opened in container - and that's a good feature to have, but not really a dealbreaker. Another difference: organization as a tab in the same window - not that really needed, just a different UI for not commonly used feature.

thrwawy742• 3 years ago

I use this with the Temporary Containers extension, so every tab is a new container, and a new session to the website I'm visiting. When I close the tab/container, all information about that site is lost. My browsing behavior - by default - is cookies live for as long as the container lives (and other cached elements). It makes me feel safer, browsing online, that I have to opt-in to remembering cookies and having them persist longer than the container. I can assign things over to the static containers like work-play-etc. For development I can have several tabs open with several independent sessions/logins going to the same website. When I tried to do this with Chrome it was 'clunky' to run separate Chrome profiles, which seem to be separate instances. I do remember an extension to do multiple in-the-same-browser sessions, but it was using a 3rd party service. I can have multiple sessions going in the same window in Firefox. As I understand, FPI prevents caching being used as a means to spy where you've been. My naive understanding is that containers encompass more than the cached elements FPI segregates, including things like fonts or localstorage. (I'm probably wrong) The only blindspot I see in Firefox is I wish preferences for extensions were per-container as well. I still use uMatrix, so if I've unblocked JS for a domain in 1 container, I don't want it unblocked for the same domain in an entirely separate container.

Also, for some sites where I do "Sign in with Google", I like being able to 'stitch together' those session cookies by opening sites in the "Google" container so i can just waltz right into the "other site". On my other containers, they don't have the session cookie for Google in the background so I'm good. I use this for work-related things with SSO. Instead of naming the "static containers" "Work, Play, etc", I just call them the SSO-provider, and I know if I move an existing container into that or open a new tab using that container it will have the login I need.

My default settings are pretty locked down. Umatrix blocks a lot in my new temporary containers, and then I gradually unblock things.

superdeeda3• 3 years ago

When I worked for an agency, I used this feature ALL the time. It had to be easy for me to switch between, for example, Trello boards of different clients or different Datadog accounts.

Even now, working at a single company, I use multi-account containers to keep tabs open for our different AWS and Datadog accounts.

cecida• 3 years ago

Social media is dead. It was never social. If I had ads to sell, then I wouldn't be looking to spend the budget on deserts like Facebook and Twitter.

mteam88• 3 years ago

Perhaps a renaming would help this take off... Containers is overused in the dev world, and is rather ambiguous in the "outside."

ttctciyf• 3 years ago

"Personas"?

lockedinspace• 3 years ago

Cargo containers from those big ships are well-known and people can assume that each container brings a set of homogeneous items. The word "container" pictures an isolated thing, which is what the add-on provides.

denkmoon• 3 years ago

Couldn't live without this feature, I just wish I could have a ublock ruleset/whitelist per container.

wslh• 3 years ago

Fifteen years ago I developed CookiePie [1]. You can see in the video opening two different gmail accounts in different tabs on the same window. This was a relatively successful Firefox extension to use separate and temporary cookie containers in different tabs. Since the Firefox API does include these capabilities, it was a pure hack, but it worked, just it was impossible to cope with every new upgrade of Firefox.

Briefly, the core of the hack was this:

(1) Firefox network hooks were not linked to UI tabs.

(2) So, I traverse all the object graph and find indirect links.

(3) I used those links to connect the network hooks with the UI, even when they conceptually were independent from the FF extension.

I sent the extension to the "Extend Firefox Prize" but didn't came with a single mention.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EBkB-Yp-zM

henchik• 3 years ago

Coolest feature is per container socks5 support so each container can send traffic through a different socks 5 server. Any VPN offering socks5 on their gateways should work. I'm using IVPN which expose socks5 on each of their WireGuard servers - there is demo on their blog - https://www.ivpn.net/blog/socks5-proxies-app-based-vpn-tunne...

0x49d12• 3 years ago

With different profiles you have different settings -> completely independent connection settings, if you want. What's the difference here with Chromium profiles for example?

bjord2• 3 years ago

I think ff's containers are generally more powerful. Here's a random example: I live outside of the country I was born in, but I still have bank accounts and stuff there. These bank accounts freak out if I log in from my actual IP. Rather than needing to run a system-wide VPN every time I want to use one of those sites, I can set a rule that will automatically open them in a container (in the same window) with preset custom connection settings.

littlecranky67• 3 years ago

So sad that this feature (amongst many others) was present in Opera v12 (before they switched to Chromium). Still miss that browser, best UX ever.

dabernathy892• 3 years ago

I could not have done my last job without this feature, because it required assuming multiple dummy identities across various chat platforms communicating with each other. I still use it to separate out accounts for different parts of my life (work vs conference planner vs personal).

ficklepickle2• 3 years ago

That sounds kinda ominous, like you were pumping NFTs or spreading government propaganda or something.

dabernathy892• 3 years ago

Heh - no, just a tool to let companies support chat interoperability between different apps. Lots of companies are running multiple chat apps simultaneously, either due to acquisitions or because there's a department that stubbornly refuses to migrate to a new one.

rc_mob• 3 years ago

How is this different from the super old firefox profiles feature?

superdeeda3• 3 years ago

You can have tabs open in different containers all within the same window.

nvln2• 3 years ago

I've been using this for a few months now and I love it. Along side temporary containers[1] and tridactyl[2] which gives

- auto containerization based on url match

- keyboard driven way to open new pages in a specific container

FF transforms into a powerful browser OS running applications with hard boundaries.

The only UX issue (which admittedly could be because I have changed the theme to be minimal by hacking userChrome) is that sometimes the temporary containers I spawn are the ones I need to retain (user storage) etc and I tend to forget that and loose data.

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-con...

[2] https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl

sfmike5• 3 years ago

whats a use case for temporary containers? Throwaway email? Does the called on server think you're a first time visitor each container?

nvln2• 3 years ago

Yeah, its a good way to circumvent tracking / fingerprinting mechanisms. Anonymization primitive.

But the primary usecase for me is to access a rarely used account temporarily without having to logout and login from the main account (AWS, Cloudflare, Google, etc).

time4tea• 3 years ago

Firefox multi account containers are amazing. For example : multiple o365 accounts, fb segregation, multiple Google accounts....

Amazing feature, underrated.

wkat42422• 3 years ago

Yep, only thing it doesn't work well with for me it's teams web (because teams is so boneheaded in that you can't be logged in to two tenants at the same time). Osteen the container tab gets stuck in a reload loop and then the dropped icecream picture "Oops something went wrong".

dicknuckle• 3 years ago

Not even with two separate containers?

shmerl2• 3 years ago

It's good, but still lacking some useful features:

* SOCKS5 proxy per container setting.

* More custom icons and colors for container.

zamadatix3• 3 years ago

SOCKS5 proxy per containers setting is there. Click the extension icon (in the toolbar not in the url bar) -> Manage Containers -> click the container you want to manage -> Advanced proxy settings

shmerl2• 3 years ago

I think it's not working due not to not proxying DNS requests.

This extension handles it correctly: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/container-pro...

paulpauper• 3 years ago

About time this happened. I have been looking for a free multi-container solution for years.

skybrian• 3 years ago

Why should I use this instead of multiple profiles?

Zecc3• 3 years ago

- You can have multiples tabs in different containers in a single window. - You can tell your browser you always want to open a given site in a given container, so if you forget and try to open in the wrong one, it will remind you and give you the option to use the right one. - The name of the container you're in is shown at the end of the address bar, in the unlikely case you forget. Every tab has a thin line of a different color per containers as well, so it's easier to tell them apart.

None of these things offers a big advantage over using virtual desktops, for example, but it's good to have choices.

Queue29• 3 years ago

You can have multiples tabs in different containers in a single window.

I literally want the _opposite_ of that. Chrome makes it so that a Window is specific to a profile. Makes it very simple to keep say Work and Home profiles separate, for example. Especially if you set color schemes for each window.

mikl• 3 years ago

- You don’t need separate windows

- You can configure rules, so onlinebanking.example.com (or whatever) always open in a separate profile for security.

- Your history/bookmarks/extensions/settings/etc. are not separate per profile.

ggm• 3 years ago

Interacts badly with some GOOGLE rest-form URLs because you can't assign a /0/thing path to more than one M-A-C and google don't distinguish your google profile (identity) in the URL.

Clumsy UI. It's useful (I use it) but its just not as simple as it could be.

Auto assigning a URL to a container is complicated. Opening and re-opening a URL in a container is complicated. Saving container state so you can re-open the same things is .. (you guessed it) complicated.

dtx1• 3 years ago

I'd never trust something like this for anything serious, especially when you can just use firejail to isolate instances on a kernel level.

sunsunsunsun• 3 years ago

I tried this a while back but I've found having two instances of Firefox for work/personal much easier to seperate my life with. I just hotkeyed the launch of the work and personal one and use different themes on the two browsers.

loicelthesea• 3 years ago

This is the way

snorrah• 3 years ago

Some ui/ux issues aside, this is an incredibly useful feature for both work and personal use.

An example of it being useful for work: I can have several AWS consoles for different environments open, so I can quickly compare configs between environments.

For personal use, I can contain facebook inside its own container so it’s cookies don’t pollute my regular browsing

nuker3• 3 years ago

Do we need Containers if using Private browsing for everything? Just curious. With saved passswords it is just one or 2 clicks to login when needed.

WirelessGigabit• 3 years ago

With containers you can retain the info. InPrivate stuff is gone once you close the browser (bar any nationstate spy).

It's also useful because InPrivate windows share a cookie jar in Firefox.

nuker3• 3 years ago

InPrivate windows share a cookie jar in Firefox

Wow, should it be a bug? Im Safari user, have little FF experience.

Renaud2• 3 years ago

Why don't we have complete main domain isolation as an option? It would work like containers, but they would be automatically created for each domain you visit.

Go visit youtube.com and anything loaded from that page is in the same container.

You'd have to log into each google property as the sites would be separated from one another, and there would probably be a need to merge these containers if say www.example.com and example.com are the same site (or automerge if there is a 302 redirect).

freeplay• 3 years ago

This add-on has that functionality.

Renaud2• 3 years ago

Does it?

Did I miss something in the settings?

webjunkie• 3 years ago

Sounds like you are suggesting First-Party Isolation (FPI) which you can enable in Firefox. Don't know what the state of it is, seems to be off by default, or depending on the tracking protection setting.

hardwaresofton4• 3 years ago

I use multi-account containers and they are wonderful. Combined with Simple Tab Groups[0] I have different workspaces set up, all with different creds and different auto-logins.

Chrome has a version of this that doesn't work properly (much like "Incognito" mode doesn't work properly). This should be one of the biggest selling points of FF.

[0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/simple-tab-gr...

Nadya2• 3 years ago

Tab Groups were better when they were baked into the browser. They were extremely buggy when the code was removed and moved into an extension. Not only often losing all of my tabs - but completely forgetting all of my tab groups altogether. Causing me to lose not only important data but also having to re-organize all my tabs into tab groups only to inevitably have to redo all the work next time FF decided it wanted to crash (which was multiple times a day at that point due to the extension...). It happened with such regularity that I grew sick of it and it was the single motivating factor that pushed me to use Chrome as my default browser.

I can only hope/assume they've gotten better since then - but it burned me really, really bad. So much that it still pisses me off talking about it all these years later.

Two of the original features that were extremely buggy were a hotkey to open up a visual overview of tab groups (originally Ctrl+Shift+E) and a way to search for a tab and reduce the number of visible tab groups to only groups containing a tab matching that search.

I see in the screenshots that this functionality seems to exist but also (based on the color coding) plays nicely with containers now. Would you be willing to vouch that it is more stable nowadays? Because if it isn't a steaming pile of shit that crashes if you so much as look in its direction that would certainly motivate me to return back to Firefox.

hardwaresofton4• 3 years ago

Tab Groups were better when they were baked into the browser. They were extremely buggy when the code was removed and moved into an extension. Not only often losing all of my tabs - but completely forgetting all of my tab groups altogether. Causing me to lose not only important data but also having to re-organize all my tabs into tab groups only to inevitably have to redo all the work next time FF decided it wanted to crash (which was multiple times a day at that point due to the extension...). It happened with such regularity that I grew sick of it and it was the single motivating factor that pushed me to use Chrome as my default browser.

This hasn't happened to me -- my biggest issues have been around mistakenly clicking into a browser group in a second browser window.

Since I have two browsers open, I keep one for sort of ephemeral stuff which isn't on a browser group at all, then main stuff (email, slack, etc) on the one. Note that pinned tabs also work fine -- I have a pinned tab that's not in a container at all (my personal email) and it's fine across all groups.

If it helps, the extension now takes copious backups across browser upgradest at the very least (that I have to delete from time to time), files named `STF-backups-FF-<FF version>`.

I can only hope/assume they've gotten better since then - but it burned me really, really bad. So much that it still pisses me off talking about it all these years later.
Two of the original features that were extremely buggy were a hotkey to open up a visual overview of tab groups (originally Ctrl+Shift+E) and a way to search for a tab and reduce the number of visible tab groups to only groups containing a tab matching that search.

Sorry to hear that... I have to say that I don't use the hotkeys that much -- I don't use a visual over view, I just go up to the add on, click it, switch into the workspace and usually I'm there for an 1-4 hours.

Maybe you could look through the release notes? I don't know what the version you used last was, but I defnitely haven't lost tabs or been very frustrated with STG in a long time.

The color coding is fantastic. I have most groups linked to a container profile, all new tabs open in the profile and everything is tidy, separate, and color coded.

I can definitely vouch that it's more stable these days -- I am daily driving it and haven't thought about it in what has to be months to years. It's a crucial part of my workflow -- I use it to seriously separate work that I do for various projects (of course I have to re-login to Github, Gitlab, etc).

ccakes• 3 years ago

Tab groups sounds great but the permissions required for the addon are too invasive to grant to a third party.

For this reason alone, tab groups should be baked in imo

mackrevinack• 3 years ago

these containers come in real handy when you want to watch a youtube video but you don't want the youtube algorithm recommending you similar videos for weeks just because you clicked on one video.

its similar to opening the video in an incognito window but with a container it will remember whatever cookie settings you choose instead of asking you each time

ctxc• 3 years ago

One thing that's been working well for me for years: just use separate browsers for separate things.

Firefox, FireFox Nightly. It takes little time for you to understand the context(you see the icon or browser and know exactly what "profile" it is), there's no suggestion or link interference etc.

ShinTakuya• 3 years ago

It's fine if you only have a few separate concerns to separate (similarly you can also use multiple browser profiles) but it's not really scalable if you want to separate 10s of sites, clients, etc.

alipitch• 3 years ago

I often visit news sites such as Hacker News. Can I use this "multi-account container" addon + something to get an experience like "iPhone Screen Time" and track my viewing time on news sites?

jdfellow• 3 years ago

I love containers but I've started to phase out using this extension and preferring Temporary Containers for most of my use cases.

jerrygoyal• 3 years ago

any alternative for chromium?

jazzgott• 3 years ago

I don't see any mention of Firefox extension "Open external links in a container"

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/open-url-in-c...

This extension gives the ability to create bookmarks that open in a specific container automatically.

When dealing with AWS accounts that are configured to use SSO. I’ll have to use IdP to login into awsapps.com. Then I have to choose AWS account and then click a Role that I would like to use for session. This is troublesome and breaks my flow. I wanted a way to quickly jump into a specific account without thinking too much.

For each AWS account that I need to use, I’ve copied a link from awsapps.com pointing at specific permissions set. When opening this link I will be taken to a specific AWS account, and if the session is expired it will prompt for IdP login and proceed to AWS account. Next, I’ve created a bookmark and crafted a url that uses the mentioned extension. It will open link in to a “staging” account in Firefox container company-staging.

taubek• 3 years ago

This seems like such great feature. Why isn't in more prominent? Would this be replacement for Chrome profiles?

sfmike5• 3 years ago

- will the mozilla vpn keep a static ip assigned per container? - is the browser footprint completely unique per container where the website called on thinks you're a fully different user? or its just seperating cookies and sessions? - is this just to keep accounts seperate or helps with privacy?

timvisee• 3 years ago

Containers are fantastic! Must have when developing/testing webapps with different user accounts, using a few containers.

Miles better than juggling with other browsers or incognito mode.

freeCandy• 3 years ago

This is quite a unique feature that I don't think exists in any other browser, I'm surprised that this isn't being used to market Firefox.

thiscatis• 3 years ago

Combining this with aws-vault is such a nice little hack when logging in with multiple AWS assume-roles across various accounts!

kirimita• 3 years ago

(As I said in a previous discussion about Firefox) I really wish it was possible to enable DRM for a single container.

flurdy• 3 years ago

I Love the Multi account feature. And its related extentions Google and facebook containers. And especially the Temporary Container extension. [1]

Only hassle I have is that I sometimes have to disable the google one if a site requires google auth but is in a non google container. Redirection wont work otherwise. Only temporarily until auth has finished.

Also I like the integration with Mozilla VPN per container. But I wish they would support disabling the VPN for some or in reverse only enable tunneling for some containers. There was a an open issue for that. [2]

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-con...

[2] https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers/issues/2...

pharmakom• 3 years ago

they need to roll this into Firefox proper. Containers are an essential feature when dealing with multiple cloud environments.

sonar_un• 3 years ago

I wish Firefox just had proper profiles. Multi account containers are absolutely no replacement for proper profiles with separate bookmarks, extensions, cookies, etc.

untoxicness• 3 years ago

What kind of features are not covered by the current implementation of profiles? <https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-...>

nikeee• 3 years ago

I'm using it since it was launched. For my use case, it lacked the ability to use a different container for a page based on the entire URL, not just the domain. For example, I've certain GitHub orgs that I'm using a separate account for. So the built-in ability to open sites based on the domain does not work for me.

I found the extension containerise [1], which offers the ability to assign containers based on globbing and/or a regex pattern. It's not something a typical "normal" user would need, so it's reasonable to not include this kind of feature in the built-in account container implementation.

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/containerise/

Cort3z• 3 years ago

This feature is possibly the main reason why I use FireFox in stead of any alternative. It is just so very nice to be able to log into multiple google accounts (in my case) at the same time.

maverick74• 3 years ago

Here's an interesting link:

How Firefox’s Total Cookie Protection and container extensions work together

https://addons.mozilla.org/blog/how-firefoxs-total-cookie-pr...

KaiserPro• 3 years ago

Why is it worth the effort?

If your company uses gmail, or any other single sign on, its a really good tool for separating work/home digital life.

multiple accounts for the same site

Facebook/instagram/reddit/youtube is really hard to have separate non-linked logins. Plus its a massive faff logging in and out. assigning accounts to tabs saves time.

keeping your youtube recommendations clear

Youtube's recommendation algorithm looks at all you are playing and figures out what you should watch next. If you see something music based, then it will hard pivot your recommendations to music. If you have something populist, then expect a fucktonne of clickbait.

Have a "clean" and "dirty" profile really improves the quality of the videos I get shown.

andrepd• 3 years ago

How does this compare to using First-party Isolation and Cookie Auto-delete (on whitelist mode)?

sdk-7• 3 years ago

Before FPI, containers were a good way to isolate cookies. Nowadays, it's a bit less useful for that. However, it still offers a nice solution to connect to multiple accounts simultaneously, have a different vpn/proxy per container. Also, it could be extended to isolate more things (e.g. different level of privacy settings, history, extensions, etc)

e12e• 3 years ago

I'm not sure how this fits against profiles, which has been in Firefox since Netscape Navigator?

Does containers also allow multiple winddows to share a profile?

For example, I have a work profile, and a home profile - and each has a window for browsing (eg: hn), and a window on my laptop screen for videochat (so when I look at the chat, I don't look way above the camera - which happen if I look at my main screen).

I can move tabs between these windows too (eg: quickly read something while still "looking" at the camera).

Does containers also allow this "single container, multiple windows" use-case?

jerieljan• 3 years ago

I have limited experience in using multiple Firefox profiles, but assuming it works like Chrome's, I like Multi-Account Containers instead because it lets me mix and match tabs running on different containers if you really have to.

I mean, I appreciate keeping a single window dedicated to my Work container running all of my work tabs to properly isolate my sessions, but sometimes I have services that I have to login on other profiles (e.g., I use a consultant Miro account that I DO want to run on the same window, even if it's not using my Work container).

It's also a lot easier to identify which tabs are running which containers thanks to their colored tab markers and the container name indicated on the address bar. It's essential if you have to say, login to two separate Gmail sessions on the same window without their sessions getting mixed up.

Finally, it's different from profiles because you can optionally associate websites to containers (e.g., if I open ycombinator.com it's opened using my Personal container while opening miro.com automatically loads a different container, while I disable this feature for sites that I login across multiple containers for different contexts, such as Gmail or the AWS Console)

fnord77• 3 years ago

Additionally, you can integrate Mozilla VPN into each container to add an extra layer of protection to your container tabs.

so you can have a different IP address per tab?

sdk-7• 3 years ago

Per container.

NoGravitas• 3 years ago

I really wish that this, and the other extensions it enables, were supported on Firefox for Android. There are a number of browsers that throw away your browsing data on every session (Firefox Focus, Duck Duck Go), and regular Firefox has the option to, but what I really want is to save cookies and other browsing data only on particular sites where I not only have an account, but also use it enough that logging in with autofill is too much of a hassle. Temporary containers allows this on desktop, but there's no mobile support.

efreak• 3 years ago

If you're not looking to sign into multiples accounts on the same website, look into state partitioning/first party isolation. If you are looking to sign into multiple accounts, I use multiple browsers for this.

rcMgD2BwE72F• 3 years ago

Cookie AutoDelete does it well: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookie-autode...

It works on Firefox mobile beta and nightly with an addons collection: https://www.ghacks.net/2022/10/20/firefox-beta-for-android-n...

e40• 3 years ago

I tried it before, but was frustrated due to sync issues.

Also, it seems like it's been abandoned, since it has changed little since the introduction.

Here are some thoughtful 1 star reviews:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...

Honestly, my own testing and all these complaints and that it hasn't been given simple care and feeding mean I'm going to avoid it until all this changes.

mattpallissard• 3 years ago

I want to see a systemd integration on Linux.

Each account gets it's own slice, each tab gets it's own transient unit. You get nested cgroups and accounting for free. Eliminating the resource hog problem and prioritizing workloads.

mutant• 3 years ago

Brilliant concept! I absolutely love this idea. Shame Mozilla seems to have stopped innovation. )≠

mjevans• 3 years ago

Multiple Profiles - for many years. Work, Personal, etc.

I'd love if Firefox as a bare URL handler ASKED, with an out of any profile context dialog, WHICH profile and window to load a URL in.

waynesonfire• 3 years ago

is the button to confirm opening the the url in a new container broken for anyone else? it just doesn't respond for me and has been this way for a while.

noisy_boy• 3 years ago

This is a great feature that has a terrible implementation.

It stubbornly tries to open both Gmail and Youtube in Google container. Even if I remove that container and create separate ones for Gmail and Youtube, when I try to open those sites in their respective containers, it will refuse to open it. If I restart firefox and retry, it goes back to creating the Google container and open both in that container.

Absolutely terrible UX for something that could be as simple as:

1. Right click on a tab and let me select a container

2. Ask if I want to remember it.

3. Actually remember it.

It actually shows the container in the address-bar which is a perfect spot for me to click on that and change it to another container - but noooo, that would be so obvious hence clicking on it does nothing. Great UX.

Everytime I want to support Firefox and come back to it, shit like this just drives me mad and makes me go to the terrible but polished alternative of Chrome. Sigh.

mckravchyk• 3 years ago

I don't get how Chrome does not have it and very few people are aware that there's this browser called Firefox that has this feature that's very hard to live without. Another thing Ctrl+Tab MRU. I just could not get back to using Chrome for these 2 reasons alone.

Shakahs• 3 years ago

Because it would interfere with Google's data collection and so they don't want you to have it. Instead of having disposable browsing containers they make Chrome itself automatically log into your Google account, then offer to continuously upload all of your browsing data via Google Chrome Sync. It's an anti-privacy user story.

Multi-Account Containers

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