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Firefox Mozilla Privacy The Internet

Experimental Firefox Feature Lets You Use Multiple Identities While Surfing the Web (techcrunch.com) 103

Firefox web browser has a new experimental feature that allows a user to segregate their online identities and sign in into multiple mail or social media accounts side-by-side without having to use multiple browsers. From a TechCrunch report: This new "container tab" feature, which is now available in the unstable Nightly Firefox release channel, provides you with four default identities (personal, work, shopping, and banking) with their own stores for cookies, IndexedDB data store, local storage and caches. In practice, this means you can surf Amazon without ads for products you may have looked at following you around the web when you switch over to your work persona. As the Firefox team notes, the idea behind this feature isn't new, but nobody has figured out how to best present this new tool to users.
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Experimental Firefox Feature Lets You Use Multiple Identities While Surfing the Web

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    just use those.

    • (Firefox profiles) just use those.

      This is using the profiles, just differently and oriented around tabs instead of user-launched processes.

      • Re: Firefox profiles (Score:5, Interesting)

        by ArmoredDragon ( 3450605 ) on Friday June 17, 2016 @12:02PM (#52337311)

        Why not just have a per-site identity? In other words, tracking cookies become worthless because they can't follow you from site to site. And then within each site, allow multiple identities if desired (think private browsing, only data is retained if you desire it.)

        • by surmak ( 1238244 )
          Yes. That would be awesome. You might need to add in the ability to merge side identities, or temporarily switch a tab to the identity of another site for those cases where you need to do so.
        • In other words, tracking cookies become worthless because they can't follow you from site to site

          This effectively does that... just in a tab. Which is a lot easier for the average user to understand.

        • Privacy Badger (Score:5, Informative)

          by tiagosousa ( 1931172 ) on Friday June 17, 2016 @03:27PM (#52339153) Homepage

          Why not just have a per-site identity? In other words, tracking cookies become worthless because they can't follow you from site to site.

          You have, in effect, described EFF's Privacy Badger [eff.org] addon. It works heuristically to block cookies from leaking from their original domains, except when told otherwise (some exceptions are included by default -- so-called yellowlist, check out "How does Privacy Badger work?" section). I've been using it for some time and seems to work very well with little breakage. Rarely have to whitelist something.

          • by Burz ( 138833 )

            No, the idea is to simply switch the entire context (Mozilla profile ...or meta-profiles) whenever the domain in the location bar changes.

            Browsers really should have been designed to have one cache / cookie db / history per visited site. That means referenced third-party content would see something different (a different 'identity') depending on what site you're actually 'at' in the location bar. The only exception would be the browser itself, which could populate the location bar history using all the sub-

    • Before Profiles (Score:4, Interesting)

      by UnderCoverPenguin ( 1001627 ) on Friday June 17, 2016 @01:37PM (#52338137)

      Before FireFox had profiles, there was the MultiFox add-on. I used it. I liked it. It was easy to use. Unfortunately, Mozilla made a change that made it impossible for MultiFox to work, claiming the functionality was more properly implemented inside FireFox than as an add-on.

      Unfortunately, it's taken far too long for Mozilla to do it.

      • Same here, now I can only have the private window before I have to open another browser.

        However I've found that plugins aren't properly isolated across profiles. For example if you have a normal and private window open and temp. allow a site in NoScript in one, the change takes effect in the other. Not good. A fix for this might be more useful than the container tabs.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    As the Firefox team notes, the idea behind this feature isn't new, but nobody has figured out how to best present this new tool to users while maintaining the ability to track the user's online presence across all platforms .

    ftfy

    CAPTCHA: truest

  • by bazmail ( 764941 ) on Friday June 17, 2016 @10:27AM (#52336411)
    Every window should be using a fresh cookie store/indexdb. All tabs on a particular window would share these. Remove ability to strip tabs out into new windows.
    No need to explain anything to grandma users etc whats happening. It just works.
    • by dmomo ( 256005 )

      That would suck for people who use a multi-monitor workflow, or sites that legitimately make use of new-window / popups. Grandpa would sure have trouble grasping why it just DIDN'T work.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Pop-ups need to die

    • No. Lots of people like different things going on in the same Window. Personally I like the IE approach (I just threw up in my mouth but l'll deal with that shortly), where windows are colour grouped by opening additional tabs.

      That way I can use my separate identity with e.g. Facebook and Twitter but the cookies and identities follow the "open in new tab" action but don't leak to other tabs in the same browser.

      Now where's my mouthwash.

  • by ADRA ( 37398 ) on Friday June 17, 2016 @10:27AM (#52336415)

    Now I can troll on Slashdot without opening multiple browsers! This will increase my net comment trolling and 'cute animal liking' productivity at least 100%..

  • Great! That will make it much easier to have an argument with myself on /., or boast the score on my own posts.
  • Won't this feature just be mainly used by astro-turfers to better use their sock-puppet accounts?
    • by cfalcon ( 779563 )

      No, it will not.

      • Well, I guess you make an irrefutable argument.
        • by cfalcon ( 779563 )

          Right now, you can easily create any number of profiles, and you can automate them with scripting if you are a weapons-grade shill. Someone who keeps their site as shillfree as possible has additional tools, such as looking at the IP and browser-sent metadata. Someone who doesn't do that is already helpless before existing tech.

          So it doesn't change the game in that department at all, nor does it escalate some fight. This is just to make your life easier. It doesn't make the life of sock puppeteers easie

  • And it doesn't claim to (this is mentioned in TFA). If privacy and security are concerns, don't consider this feature. It's a great way to help companies to correlate your online identities. With browser finger-printing, it wouldn't be too tricky for them to merge your online activity.

    However, what if this were to be extended so that each contextual container allowed it's own settings / plugins / configuration / auto-complete / history data? This would at least make it equivalent to using different browser

  • I'd like to see a feature that lets me go more than a day or two without having to restart FF because it can't resolve a DNS address, while Chrome and even IE have no such problem.
    Now get off my lawn with your experimental features!

  • Why only 4? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Friday June 17, 2016 @10:33AM (#52336499) Homepage Journal

    I'm not a usability expert by any means, so can anyone tell me why only four identities?

    That seems pretty limiting to me, it should be the end user's choice how many identities to use.

    Why not something simple like each *window* have separate data that's shared between tabs? Then you don't have any UI changes or usability problems.

    Or is "it just works" an Apple patent or something?

    • by vux984 ( 928602 )

      I'm not a usability expert by any means, so can anyone tell me why only four identities? That seems pretty limiting to me, it should be the end user's choice how many identities to use.

      The fact that it comes with four doesn't automatically imply that advanced users can't define additional ones, or customize the list.

      Even if it is limited to four, the fact that an experimental feature in nightly lacks that configurability doesn't imply that if it makes it to release it would still hard limited to four.

      In other words, its good feedback, but its a bit early to "fail" the feature over it.

      PS it sounds like its actually currently 5, the four named containers plus the 'default' container.

      Why not something simple like each *window* have separate data that's shared between tabs? Then you don't have any UI changes or usability problems.

      Some we

    • by dmomo ( 256005 )

      "Why not something simple like each *window* have separate data that's shared between tabs? Then you don't have any UI changes or usability problems."

      That could be confusing for people who WANT multiple windows that share sessions. I use a multi-monitor workflow, for instance. Some sites use new windows (often as popups) as part of their functionality.

  • multiple mail or social media accounts side-by-side without having to use multiple browsers

    I like having (to use) multiple bowsers for this. It means I can have a different desktop icon for each one. Want to do "general purpose" surfing? use the default. Want to log in to FB? Use a firefox that has a different database, history, cookie location and remembered passwords - not quite a sandbox, but good enough.

    And so it goes on. It is quite easy and sounds more straightforward than that stuff about containers.

    • You could still do that with commandline options that specify a profile.

      What I do with firefox is I have different profiles and select one using the profile manager.

      Then I have different skins for each profile, so I don't accidentally type something into the wrong window and embarass myself. I have a 'red profile' for shitposting ( actually Samurai Jack themed ) and a green profile ( green for money ) that I use my real name on, and do banking and buying stuff. My red profile doesn't get my credit card

  • by brwski ( 622056 ) on Friday June 17, 2016 @10:39AM (#52336553)
    Cookies, etc., should never be able to see each other without permission. Let's hope this trend continues.
    • by dmomo ( 256005 )

      What trend are you talking about? How do cookies see each other? Cookies for a given domain are meant to be given to the server by the browser along with an http request. That domain is allowed to set cookies upon an http response. This is how it works now and has worked for quite some time.

      • by ChadL ( 880878 ) *
        Which is why domains all include www.example.com/web_beacon.png at the bottom; then they contract with example.com to get a list of what other domains you have visited.
        Because this feature seperates them the work example.com cookie won't be shared with the Slashdot example.com cookie.
        Some browsers allow disabling 3rd party cookies, but that tends to cause issues with SSO and isn't the general default. I currently use self-destructing cookies which causes cookies out-of-scope to vanish, which also solves
    • uMatrix (Score:4, Informative)

      by CrashNBrn ( 1143981 ) on Friday June 17, 2016 @11:18AM (#52336959)
      uMatrix (replacement for Ghostery, AdBlock|uBlock, etc) - blocks by default:

      All 3rd party cookies.
      All 3rd party scripts.
      All iFrames.
      • RequestPolicy Continued - blocks by default:

        Literally every 3rd party request, including images (e.g. tracking pixels).

        • I used to use Request Policy, it has a generally more user-friendly interface (in the beginning). RPc also has more limitations than uMatrix - you need more rules and more micromanagement with RPc to achieve site-compatibility. So I ran them side by side for a while, until I got the hang of uMatrix, and kept up with RPc on GitHub, but it's development is very slow.

          RequestPolicy - even before it was forked was pretty awesome compared to AdBlock and co, but uMatrix just takes it to another level - most gen
  • I have been using Incognito mode for quite many years mostly because of having to log in to more than one gmail accounts simultaneously. The only thing that I miss is the ability to have them all in one window in different tabs. But on the other hand having different accounts in different windows can be also considered as a feature, as it greatly helps in separating tabs showing data from the same account. It also enables me not have to push that annoying sign in with a different account link, because it a
  • Kewl! So, I can, like, flame or troll myself on Slashdot?
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Cookies aren't the only way advertisers identify users. What about adding many of the other pieces (UA string, list of extensions, HTTP_ACCEPT Headers, language support, time zone, etc.)?

    I'd like to see the browser randomly change as many of these as possible (don't even make them unique to the same session).

    See https://panopticlick.eff.org

  • I think they missed the most important one... Pr0n.
    I know the private/incognito mode is for that, but if you gone create default profiles, let's not be prude about it.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Most ad networks use much more than cookies & cache to identify you.

    Flash cookies, user agent, screen resolution, installed fonts, plugins, etc.

    Here's an open source library to do exactly that:

    https://github.com/Valve/finge... [github.com]

  • I'm very happy to see Firefox adding a good feature.
  • This might be one of the reasons Firefox has been losing market share to Chrome. Chrome has had this feature for some time already, I use it every day to manage my home and work accounts. Even bookmarks are managed separately for each account.

    It's good to see Firefox catching up. It's a great browser, I hope they don't stop there!

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