This features great if you habe two people who use a device. I have it on the steamdeck in my lounge and its nice for people to be able to open Firefox and have all their accounts saved and their extensions
this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2025
478 points (98.2% liked)
Technology
76046 readers
4552 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Impressive that theyre finally adding a feature that ive already been using. Makes you wonder how they do that
A feature that has been present for 20 years, but never exposed in the interface. Truly magical.
Quite. It's how I've been watching YouTube ad-free for ages.
I thought it had had that for twenty years?
Yeah I don't know why profiles itself are being mentioned as a new thing. What's new is the more convenient interface for them
you don't like about:profiles?
Show of Hands:
Who's heard of "about:profiles"?
🦗🦗🦗
Been using it for years.
Been using multi account containers [1] for a couple weeks, complete with per-tab-SSL vpns.
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/
Wait till you hear about:about
For some reason I read that in a Canadian accent in my head.
“aboot aboot”
load more comments
(1 replies)
I use them all the time, they're great. I learned about it from another random Lemmy comment
load more comments
(3 replies)
load more comments
(8 replies)
I think they are just making a ui to manage it natively.
firefox -p was also an UI. Not as fancy as this one.
Also about:profiles if it’s already running
load more comments
(5 replies)
Feels super strange to read this. They had profiles for what, decades now? It just required a simple command line flag.
I mean, this is better, but... Yeah.
I already use profiles in Firefox but this looks a much better interface for managing them.
uhhh, this has been a thing for a long time already. I don't know whats new here. put about:profiles in your url bar for anyone uses a firefox based browser.
The UI was clearly not user friendly.
took em long enough.
So...... about:profiles is what then ‽‽
I think containers (that Firefox already has) are a much better way to handle this. Profiles, art least the way they are implemented on chrome, feels like a massive downgrade.
It depends on how much separation you need. If you want different bookmarks, history, or settings per, then I believe you need profiles to make that happen.
load more comments
(2 replies)
You can use containers all you want, just don't create another profile and you're golden.
load more comments
(6 replies)
The screeshots shows functionality that the current profile/profile launch UI already has. Choose, create, ask on startup.
Right now it's hidden behind a startup parameter. But honestly, I would prefer a UI between the current one and the new one. That screenshot looks like it would reduce usability through big spacing and suboptimal alignment. At least judging by my preferences.
I guess adding a picture is nice. But does it have to be that huge and prominent?
load more comments
(12 replies)
about:profiles always worked for me. And the profile manager. I don't need a 3rd ui for switching profiles.
The new one is a much better experience. It works like profiles in chrome now. The old one is still there for you to use if you prefer.
load more comments
(2 replies)
I find multi account containers to be the best workflow ergonomics when it comes to separating logins and sessions. I think having the same bookmarks, theme, etc. is actually nice. But I’m sure many really enjoy profile swapping.
profiles also allow different addons and addon configurations, default fonts, browser config, etc… it’s kinda like having a whole other user account or a whole other copy of the browser, rather than just cookie and storage isolation
load more comments
(2 replies)
Why would I use this when I have Firefox containers?
separate settings, separate addons, separate about prefs. also for when the PC is used by more than one person but there is only one user account
Ok this is handy ngl. I've forgotten about the shared family compute scenario
load more comments
(8 replies)
Uhm ... is this perhaps for the android browser then?
The desktop browser has had this for a long long time, though in recent builds a bit hidden. I still use various profiles, very handy.
load more comments
(1 replies)
It is a great feature and is the main reason I like Floorp (Firefox fork). But the UX does not look good, I think the way Floorp does is better:
https://docs.floorp.app/docs/features/how-to-use-workspaces/
load more comments
(1 replies)
One thing that I wonder is if I can convert my old firefox -P profiles into this new kind of profiles, and have them all be synced by firefox with a single account instead of recreating them on all my devices. On the filesystem they seem to be the same, just not in the same place.
load more comments
(3 replies)
Ironically, in the article it's pictured running on Windows, which now has a built-in mechanic for automatically screen shotting everything you do and keeping records.
Yay.
view more: next ›