Firefox Containers Preview

ttwapi about 3 hours ago 36 commentsRead Article on blog.mozilla.org

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Discussion (36 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

pentagrama•about 2 hours ago

I’ve been using Firefox Containers for years through Mozilla’s Multi-Account Containers extension.[1] Now that container management is available directly in Firefox, I’d prefer to use the native implementation if possible.

Mozilla notes that the extension still adds some functionality:

> “Installing the Multi-Account Containers extension developed by Mozilla provides a few benefits on top of the native container functionality like site-specific container assignments, syncing across devices, and integration with Mozilla VPN or your own proxy.”[2]

I don’t currently need any of those additional features, so the native version would probably be enough for me. What I haven’t been able to figure out is how to switch without losing my existing setup. Are the containers created by the extension already shared with Firefox’s native container manager, or is there some migration process? Can I safely uninstall the extension and keep my existing containers, names, colors, icons, cookies, and active sessions?

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

[2] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-use-firefox-contain...

realityfactchex•about 1 hour ago

> Can I safely uninstall the extension and keep my existing containers, names, colors, icons, cookies, and active sessions?

Great question.

As a very satisfied, long time user of 2 extensions in combination, Temporary Containers and Firefox Multi-Account Containers, I wonder the same thing.

I found out the hard way some time back that simply disabling (not even removing it) and re-enabling the Firefox Multi-Account Containers extension would cause all the painstakingly set up containers and their saved credentials/data to get "lost".

If there were to be a way to "export" and "import" sets of named containers with their settings and data, that would be great for not losing which-site-maps-to-which-container-and-is-already-signed-in (whether natively or within an extension).

giancarlostoro•about 2 hours ago

Back in like 2017? or 2018 when Containers came out for Firefox, I used the Multi-Account Containers Extension to manage QA testing of web apps, I'd have a container labeled for the user I wanted to log in as and test. It's insanely useful for the web.

What's also interesting is Tor Browser could probably take full advantage of containers later on, but I'm not sure if they would come up with a specific way of using it or just disable it.

bityard•about 1 hour ago

> site-specific container assignments

This is (or was, before I switched to Vivaldi) the killer feature of Firefox containers for me. I could banish certain tracking-heavy sites to their own containers so that they could only track where I've been on their own properties and not across the whole web. (Without having to remember to switch to their containers beforehand.) So I guess if I go back to Firefox, I'll still have to use the extension.

And maybe I'm misremembering, but I thought that containers did more than just separate the cookie jars? I really like using Vivaldi/Chrome's separate profiles because then I can have separate extensions/settings/polices/etc for each one. Some sites don't get along with certain extensions.

jillesvangurp•about 1 hour ago

Good that they are integrating that into the main browser.

For me the big use case is having different Google accounts active in one window. Work and private. And when I was doing freelance projects, I sometimes had 3 or 4 different Google accounts active. Plus assorted stuff tied to those accounts. Using different colors for each makes it easy to tell apart the tabs.

Another use case is if you are testing the same app for different customers with different credentials. I do this a lot and I have dedicated containers for each customer so I can easily switch with out having to log out and in a lot.

And of course some companies that can't be trusted with cookies, like Facebook, get isolated. I open that container less and less these days. But I still check every few months. I also keep my bank's website in its own container just on principle.

toss1•about 1 hour ago

If seems this should make obsolete the setup of having a separate computer (e.g., old laptop) to isolate Facebook properties, or am I missing something where a separate machine would be advantageous?

(I avoid FB like the plague but may need to use it for some biz uses where they effectively host too large a share of the intended market)

chao-•about 2 hours ago

Firefox's Multi-Account Containers changed the game for me back in 2018 or 2019, and is what got me to switch back to Firefox for 95% of my personal browser use. The "Always open {{domain}} in this container" and the ability to open a specific container with a keyboard shortcut seem like small things, but I can't imagine life without them anymore.

I never understood why it was set off to the side in an (official, first-party) extension, because I was always afraid they would one day stop supporting it. Now when I explain to people why I prefer Firefox, I don't have to explain "There's this extension, don't worry it's official, that allows me to..." I can just say "It has containers built-in. They're great. Try them."

waz0wski•about 2 hours ago

Yep, same here

MAC + Temporary Containers extension is how web browsing should be handled by default imo

No website deserves permanence of any data in my browser unless I so choose

I haven't seen similar functionality in any of the new generation of browsers, nor any of the Firefox spinoffs as-yet

lukeschlather•about 1 hour ago

I use profiles for this, I wonder what the tradeoffs are between the two approaches. I've actually been thinking about building some tools to make it easier to create and manage profiles on the fly. For me I really think profiles are better since the boundaries are harder - there's no worry about accidentally hitting the "log in with Google" button and clearly identifying myself to a site or similar, because I read the news in a separate profile from my Google account. And it would be nice if those sort of guardrails were very intuitive and easy to set up by default. But I feel like containers may be too squishy.

xnx•about 2 hours ago

This is great, and the direction Firefox should focus on: creating user-first features that other browsers won't and extension authors can't.

I only wish it was more automated. Every site should automatically get its own container.

How much of the anti-tracking value is defeated by non-cookie browser fingerprinting?

wtfHN26•about 2 hours ago

I isolate containers by the type of account I am using on there.

So FB gets a different container. Google accounts get a container each. When I need to log in with Google - use the Google account's container.

Work gets different ones - depending on nature of work.

That makes it easy to manage containers for me.

In theory that account's data tracking to an extent is limited. But with browser fingerprinting I doubt this whole set up is very useful once you start aggregating data from multiple providers.

ashkulz•about 2 hours ago

Use the Temporary Containers extension, it does just that.

vintagedave•about 3 hours ago

Oddly enough I thought Firefox had that a few years ago. I forget what I used - maybe a Mozilla extension? - but it even colour-coded tabs.

Am I wrong? Was it unofficial? A hack?

notatoad•about 2 hours ago

> For almost a decade, many of you have relied on our Multi-Account Containers extension to keep work, personal, and privacy-sensitive browsing separate without needing multiple browsers or profiles.

> We’ve heard your feedback and understood the value you find in that separation. Now, we’re bringing the power of the Multi-Account Containers extension directly into the heart of Firefox for all to benefit from.

NoGravitas•about 2 hours ago

It was an official extension, distributed separately from Firefox, but it was so ubiquitous and a dependency for so many other Firefox extensions, that it would be unusual to not have it installed.

zache6•about 2 hours ago

The article mentions this extension; it seems like what you're describing: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...

ars•about 2 hours ago

I have containers on Firefox, and I do NOT have this extension installed.

MaKey•32 minutes ago

The Facebok Container extension also makes containers available.

dblohm7•about 2 hours ago

They've been available natively on Nightly with some basic UI support since they were first implemented a decade ago. Some other pre-release builds have them too but it's been too long and I cannot remember which ones did or didn't.

Alifatisk•about 2 hours ago

Firefox multicontainers I think it is

wsgeorge•about 2 hours ago

But Firefox also has browser profiles now (something I wanted for so long I moved back to chrome to get it), so what’s the purpose of first-party containers now? Don’t browser profiles provide a more robust, very visible delineation between different accounts/user profiles?

rhdunn•about 2 hours ago

Firefox has had profiles for a long time (via about:profiles and a command-line argument). Unfortunately, the new profiles are not compatible with the old ones and cannot be migrated.

ars•about 2 hours ago

A profile is a full new browser, these containers are just tabs. So they mix into the current browser window.

They are much more lightweight, and the workflow is better, just switch tabs.

mixmastamyk•about 1 hour ago

I hope they improve the UI, it has been difficult to use. Several menus with different random functionality that don’t have the options I’m looking for. Many times I have to hunt through the extension preferences to do simple things.

Also the “temporary container” extension is quite useful and closer to what I need in the first place.

svl7•about 2 hours ago

Multi-Account Containers paired with Container Proxy allows for some really cool setups. I especially like the options to use socks proxies. Hope they will add proper proxy support later.

warpech•about 2 hours ago

What are the cool setups with proxies?

svl7•about 1 hour ago

It allows me to access different networks (that might only be reachable via jumphosts or similar) from the same browser. Also at work - some required browser based tools are only accessible via specific proxies. With container specific proxies that's a breeze.

XJ0OYtjb•about 2 hours ago

My guess as to what's new here is... nothing.

I'm thinking they will change the containers preference to default to on, and if the extension enabled the preference before maybe that's being removed. Otherwise the containers functionality in Firefox or the extensions in the extensions remain exactly as they were before.

So you still need the extension as it has the critical functionality of Ctrl-Shift-1 to open a new tab of the first container type.

robinhood•about 2 hours ago

Amazing news. Wonder if this will be synced on multiple machines through Mozilla Connect, since that wasn't the case with the Mozilla’s Multi-Account Containers extension before.

I hope it is, since it was a major pain point before.

sfRattan•about 2 hours ago

The Multi-account containers extension does sync via Firefox sync, but you have to go into the extension's settings in each browser and manually enable it. Annoying, and took me a while to find it, but it's there at least. Hopefully won't be necessary to manually switch on once containers are a part of Firefox proper.

fph•about 1 hour ago

Are they shipping it on Android, too?

unethical_ban•about 1 hour ago

I would love to see a better UI for

  - Forcing container usage/default window popup for assigning sites to containers
  - Viewing a list of websites assigned per container

That said I think containers are a great idea, I currently use it to isolate Meta and Amazon sites. Could probably be doing more.

midnight_eclair•about 2 hours ago

tree style tabs and container-locked windows. that will make firefox perfect.

ars•about 2 hours ago

I'm a little confused here, I've been using the containers feature already for years now on Firefox. And I have no add-on installed for it, it just works.

So what is it that they're adding?

dizhn•about 2 hours ago

You could have containers but the software itself had no way to manage them. The extension provided the de facto default way to manage them. I think now they are baking the functionality in. I wish they would actually flesh out split tabs. It is so barebones it pissed me off enough to sort of stop using Firefox on a few boxes altogether after decades of use.The browser seems to be the last thing on this company's mind.

moritzwarhier•about 2 hours ago

Kubernetes

Serious answer:

> For almost a decade, many of you have relied on our Multi-Account Containers extension to keep work, personal, and privacy-sensitive browsing separate without needing multiple browsers or profiles.

I'm confused too, maybe it's preinstalled, but disabled?

I remember seeing this Fb container symbol in a tab from time to time in my private machine, but I think I did enable something in advance.

Or it's that I just see it extremely rarely due to uBlock origin.