1153655 - [Feature Request] Make it easier to access the Profile Manager, create profiles, and shortcuts to profiles

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1882882

(Toolkit :: Startup and Profile System, enhancement)

Description

[thetransintransgenic]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/40.0.2214.111 Safari/537.36

Steps to reproduce:

I want to, say, be constantly logged into Gmail, but not broadcast that out to every tracker on every page I visit -- or maybe I want to be logged into two different Facebook accounts, or some other reason for having multiple profiles easily accessible.

Attempt to regularly use two different profiles. Current pattern:
1. Start Firefox in a non-standard way to access Profile Manager (right-/ctrl- clicking, calling from terminal)
2. Create a new profile.
3. Manually create a desktop shortcut/.desktop file/I-don't-even-know-what-on-OS-X to open Firefox as the second profile
4. Set Firefox not to Ask On Startup so that it still boots normally into the default profile
4. Possibly find some way so that on OS X, and Linux Desktop Environments which separate by application, to count them as separate applications? And maybe give the other one a slightly different icon?

(A little


Actual results:

That took way too long, and had way to much fiddling with technical details, to possibly be considered an actual option for most users. So most users (including me, who *knows* how to do most of those steps (not step 4, as is obvious)) end up just using 2 different browsers. (Usually Firefox and Chrome)


Expected results:

The Profile Manager should be easy to access. Profiles should be easy to create, and easy to create shortcuts to -- easy as in, e.g., "drag the profile from the Profile Manager to the Dock/Desktop/etc.". Just creating a new application-looking-thing in an known location is probably good enough.

It doesn't need to be perfectly findable by every user -- just enough so that HowTo sites can give instructions that won't make people feel like they might break something.


To get a sense of both the current steps, and that there actually are some people who want this, here are two (Windows-only, 7-8-year-old) links:
http://lifehacker.com/231646/geek-to-live--manage-multiple-firefox-profiles
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/internet/firefox/use-multiple-firefox-profiles-at-the-same-time/

(P.S. This is probably not formatted or filled out right. Sorry...)

Comment 1

[Gingerbread Man]

(In reply to thetransintransgenic from comment #0)
> […] or maybe I want to be logged into two different Facebook accounts

If the point is to be logged in to the same site with multiple accounts simultaneously, you can do that either with Private Browsing [1] or add-ons [2].

[1] https://support.mozilla.org/kb/private-browsing-use-firefox-without-history
[2] https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/multifox/

Comment 2

[thetransintransgenic]

Multifox is pretty cool, and definitely worth the install, but more than that.
I mean having effectively two different browsers, in terms of "all data completely separated, all history is completely separated, all addons, tweaks, etc., separated -- and it would be pretty cool if when alt-tabbing they counted as separate applications". And two different looks would be nice, so that which one I'm in can just be background.
Like, maybe, one for normal browsing, where I forbid javascript because security and load, and block all the trackers, and one for social networks, which all require javascript and half of which break if you don't let them track.
That's my use case. My friend's is different, <random person #8923> is different. But we all know how to customize or tweak a browser, and we all know that currently the only way we can have two separate sets of commonly used tweaks is by having two separate browsers.


I can currently get all that by installing two different browsers. But that's wasteful in terms of space, wasteful in terms of time thinking, wasteful in terms of "profiles can /do/ almost all that already, I just have to drop to a command line to use them."

And, like, here is exactly a "Profiles is what I want, but doesn't have a good UI" interaction from the bug tracker of Multifox: ( https://github.com/hultmann/multifox/issues/204 )
>>> My specific use case for Multifox is to have 2-4 users access
>>> the same site from one public computer with all of them being
>>> logged in simultaneously
>> Are you aware that Firefox has a profile manager? It supports 
>> a variety of useful things, including running multiple at once
>> (each in its own window). If I read you correctly that might be
>>exactly what you need!
>Yes, I am aware of it but AFAIK, it only allows one profile to
>be active at a time, which doesn't help me.

There are a few more bug reports with similar "just use profiles" answers, too.

Like, things profiles can do:
-- Very effectively simulate multiple different browsers being installed, with regards to history, addons, logins, etc.
Things profiles cannot do:
-- Be used easily at all.

Comment 3

[Mirek]

(In reply to Gingerbread Man from comment #1)

(In reply to thetransintransgenic from comment #0)

[…] or maybe I want to be logged into two different Facebook accounts

If the point is to be logged in to the same site with multiple accounts
simultaneously, you can do that either with Private Browsing [1] or add-ons
[2].

[1]
https://support.mozilla.org/kb/private-browsing-use-firefox-without-history
[2] https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/multifox/

Something that this lacks is having different Firefox accounts and the bookmarks, histories, passwords, and tabs associated with them.

I use Firefox for both work and personal reasons, and I keep two separate profiles. Aside from on a Mac, where the Multifirefox app makes using profiles relatively simple, using profiles is a huge pain.

It'd be great if this got more attention. Chrome has excellent profile management features, and it's sad to see Firefox lagging behind.

Comment 4

[GodLo]

Exactly it would be very useful to have a profile manager similar to chrome to create/separate and switch from a profile to another.

This is the main feature that I miss to use Firefox instead of Chrome. Please! I want to use Firefox!

Comment 5

[cfebs]

This is the main feature that I miss to use Firefox instead of Chrome. Please! I want to use Firefox!

My thoughts exactly.

about:profiles and firefox -P are actually decent, but it should be a first class tool in the settings menu.

Comment 6

[cfebs]

Another persistent issue that could be fixed via this feature request: https://support.mozilla.org/bm/questions/999493

The existing behavior of always opening urls in the default profile basically kills multi-profile workflows.