1542189 - [wfh] Add profile switching to Firefox Account button

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Firefox :: Firefox Accounts, enhancement)

Description

[paulo8624]

As a a user, it would be helpful to have a interface menu to switch between profiles, much as Chrome already does with their Sync menu. The new Firefox Account button is a great opportunity to add that.

Comment 2

[Andrei Petcu]

I see this this often on twitter https://twitter.com/vinaysshenoy/status/1132200150032474112

https://twitter.com/nixhaxor/status/1132361753554083840

https://twitter.com/kctang/status/1131591162546991105

Comment 3

[Ryan Kelly [:rfkelly]]

Thank you for the suggestion; I agree, this or something similar is a good idea! +:rfeeley from UX who I'm sure has thought about the possibilities here as well. I don't believe it's on our current roadmap though.

Comment 4

[mozffbgs]

What makes this worse, is that there doesn't seem to be any possibility to switch profiles on the Android version at all.

Comment 5

[Ryan Feeley [:rfeeley]]

I would agree, and would love something like this too, but it is a non-trivial engineering feat to deliver an experience that comes close to Chrome does, and seeing as we’re aware at how few people make use of this feature, we have not prioritized it highly.

In the meantime, I encourage you to give containers a try. It’s not useful if you need separate bookmarks and passwords, but if you just need to sign into different accounts, it's even better than profiles – everything in one window!

Comment 6

[Robert AB]

(In reply to Ryan Feeley [:rfeeley] from comment #5)

I would agree, and would love something like this too, but it is a non-trivial engineering feat to deliver an experience that comes close to Chrome does, and seeing as we’re aware at how few people make use of this feature, we have not prioritized it highly.

Would it be possible after Project Fission is complete?

Comment 7

[Ryan Feeley [:rfeeley]]

That's a good question! Neha, are you aware if Fission project will make it possible for Firefox to support concurrently running profiles?

Comment 8

[Neha Kochar [:neha]]

(In reply to Ryan Feeley [:rfeeley] from comment #7)

That's a good question! Neha, are you aware if Fission project will make it possible for Firefox to support concurrently running profiles?

No, that's out of scope of Fission.

Comment 9

[Celso]

(In reply to Ryan Feeley [:rfeeley] from comment #5)

I would agree, and would love something like this too, but it is a non-trivial engineering feat to deliver an experience that comes close to Chrome does, and seeing as we’re aware at how few people make use of this feature, we have not prioritized it highly.

In the meantime, I encourage you to give containers a try. It’s not useful if you need separate bookmarks and passwords, but if you just need to sign into different accounts, it's even better than profiles – everything in one window!

I understand that Mozilla doesn't have unlimited resources, but if a feature is hard to use, less people will use it, and less incentive you'll have to prioritise profile-related features. It doesn't mean that users, specially those moving from Chrome, don't want to use this feature. I personally had to pick a Chromium fork because of this.

It's like Firefox and macOS. Firefox isn't popular on this platform in part because performance and battery usage is bad when compared to Safari and even Chrome. This means that important bugs take years to be fixed and in turn it forces people to use different browsers... meaning that the user base doesn't grow, bugs don't get fixed, users pick a different browser and so on... I think you get my point.

Until profiles are easy to use, people will avoid them because not everyone wants to deal with shortcuts (windows only), terminal commands, 3rd party tools, or type about:profiles every time they want to open a profile. Containers are a neat idea, but on top of missing features that would make them easier to use (eg: shortcuts to open specific containers), it's not always possible or desirable to mix, let's say, work stuff and personal stuff which might require different addons, bookmarks, etc.

Comment 10

[Jean Helou]

hi,

I started migrating from chrome to firefox a few months ago. I immediately missed the profiles but decided to try to work around it. I installed containers and started using them, it doesn't come even close to the level of segregation I used to have with chrome profiles.

[:rfeeley] writes

if you just need to sign into different accounts, it's even better than profil

Except it's not, because it doesn't work all that well with normal web navigation, especially when moving from public to private content. You have to remember oh wait this link is only accessible from this user for this service so I need to right click and open the link in the proper container to be able to access the content (think github/gitlab private repositories for instance) when using split profiles links automatically open in the correct profile.

I used to have 10 personas in chrome, my personal profil, and customer related personas for work which would help me restore full contract-specific context, non-profit profiles for the same reason (organizing context) + my wife's profile.
Having totally separate profiles lets me access similar resources from different personas in a coherent manner ( google drive with the associated calendar, gmail account, internal github /gitlab accounts, mattermost/slack etc) when I am within a profile I don't have to remember to switch container because oh wait this service needs this specific login for this specific usage and I browsed through the wrong containers up until now

Multi-login in google services doesn't has some limitations, it's not possible at all on some other services making such split usage fairly painful.

As a consequence, I find that I have migrated only 2 personas from chrome to firefox, with quite a bit of pain and I keep starting chrome for the remainder of my uses.

Yes I am proficient enough that I could use cli toggles but the UX is terrible when compared to chrome. Since there is a firefox account icon now, I suggest enhancing that account to allow switching profiles.

Comment 11

[esetnik]

I decided to give Firefox another chance after being a long-time chrome user concerned about my privacy. The lack of a profile switcher was the single biggest omission I found when trying to get my browsing experience in order on Firefox. I have 10 personas on Chrome, each with a customized bookmarks bar, logged into various services, etc. It'd be so easy for Firefox to offer this same functionality since their profiles concept works just fine and all that's missing is a UI element for switching. For now, I'll stick with Chrome.

Comment 14

[Asif Youssuff]

Adding [wfh] from duped bugs.

Comment 15

[Asif Youssuff]

Microsoft blogged about this feature in Edge, specifically calling out "people at home working from their own devices": https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2020/04/30/automatic-profile-switching/

Comment 18

[Linus Kardell]

This issue also applies to Thunderbird.

Comment 19

[Linus Kardell]

(In reply to Ryan Kelly [:rfkelly] from comment #3)

I don't believe it's on our current roadmap though.

Given recent events, that should probably be reevaluated.

Comment 20

[Poopooracoocoo]

^yup. this + scrolling among several other things would make firefox more attractive than chrome

Comment 22

[Alex Davis [:adavis]]

I found an extension for this so sharing it in case it's helpful for others: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/profile-switcher/

Comment 23

[Robin]

I'd highly appreciate some inbuilt functionality to switch between profiles and make them more visible (e.g. in the window title bar) to the user. I'm aware of the profile switcher add-on but unfortunately it requires a native client software to be installed on your computer. It does not work standalone, wouldn't be updated via the regular browser updates etc. Would be great if this functionality could be provided via a native feature.

Another alternative for me would be the use of the container feature but unfortunately that doesn't support command line parameters as profiles do (see bug report https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1726634).

Comment 24

[ajs1998]

Apparently this feature has been in high demand for over two years now. Disappointing that it still has not been prioritized. With Google dropping support for Manifest v2, I am trying to switch to Firefox. My only complaint is the lack of proper profile switching. The option being hidden away in about:profiles is inconvenient. And it's embarrassing I need the extension just to have the button. I'm sure many others are also going to be experimenting with Firefox in the next few months because of the Manifest v3 thing, and I'm sure a good chunk of them will be pretty immediately turned off by the lack of this basic feature (which is already implemented, but there's no button for it!)

Power users want to use Firefox, but power users in Chrome love having a work profile and a personal profile. This is going to be a deal-breaker for a lot of people.

Comment 26

[u713120]

(In reply to Alex Davis [:adavis] from comment #22)

I found an extension for this so sharing it in case it's helpful for others: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/profile-switcher/

Thank you Alex. I'll look it up!

Yet unfortunately the issue remains, Firefox users shouldn't have to rely on third-party extensions to manage native Firefox features. Having easy access to the profile manager via the UI is a must. Without it most new users will be misled to think Firefox lacks a feature that more browsers do have and they may miss.

Comment 27

[faded.solivagant]

Sorry for replying. But this option should be implemented natively in Firefox. and it's a really needed feature.
As you can see there are a lot of people waiting for it here: https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/shortcut-for-different-profiles/idi-p/707
I don't think that would be hard for Mozilla team to implement (Since there's already profiles functionality).
Only a bit redesign is needed in the "Firefox account" menu.

Comment 28

[Ben]

I'm surprised to see this bug.

Isn't it simple to offer the option to have an icon to put on the toolbar/overflow/menu bar/Hamburger

Offer a dropdown menu with existing profiles which could be opened in a new window.

Comment 29

[Daniel]

Attachment: Windows task bar showing one pinned edge profile (left) and a second running edge profile (right)

The profile switcher UI elements are not enough to make this a good feature.

Browser Windows of different profiles should also not be grouped together in the task bar (#1836714).

And profiles should be pinnable to the Desktop and the task bar (at least on Windows) and should automatically be given a proper symbol so it can be distinguished easily. Chrome and Microsoft Edge do this really well (see attachment).

The one feature from Chrome/Edge that Firefox should not implement is the "Connected to Windows" account suggestions that Chrome/Edge offer when a Microsoft sign-in page is shown.

I created a separate ticket outlining my suggestions for this feature (I didn't find this enhancement when I wrote it): #1836712

Comment 30

[Axel]

This is a basic feature specially nowadays a lot of people work at home with their own devices. It would be great to implement it in the account menu and enable the same keyboard shortcut Chromium-based browser use, CTRL/CMD + SHIFT + M.

Comment 32

[berkayozturk]

Since this feature request is 4 years old, I was wondering if we can see this implemented in the foreseeable future. All the other browsers I used (Chrome, Orion, Safari, Edge etc.) already have this

Comment 33

[Tobias Schula]

Firefox has a profile manager since the days of the Mozilla Suite. In the old Mozilla Suite and even nowadays in Seamonkey you can access it with "Extras > Profile Manager". The profile manager is also available in Firefox, if you start firefox with the argument "-P". A bit of polish to the manager, mostly converting it's XUL GUI, and it could be used straight away.

Comment 34

[Linus Kardell]

I'd also like to be able to choose which profile external links open in. Currently only one profile can own the "remote" function, so all links open in that profile.

Comment 35

[Óscar García Amor]

(In reply to Linus Kardell from comment #34)

I'd also like to be able to choose which profile external links open in. Currently only one profile can own the "remote" function, so all links open in that profile.

See this bug 1455251