If only it gracefully supported profiles in a similar way to Chrome. Having two binaries running gets real funky when you want to open a page in whatever browser window you recently used, which also happens to be the most recent profile, too.
I'm aware it's not the same as Chrome profiles but multi-account containers, where individual tabs can have their own sessions, is a killer feature of Firefox.
The ability to have multiple AWS accounts logged into at the same time in tabs side by side is a real time saver.
I use containers with SideBerry for this. I have panels dedicated to google accounts (broadly: work, other and personal). When I'm in a panel and click a link it opens correctly with the right container and corresponding auth.
It's the best flow I've found. You can also set rules for domains to always open (or prompt) in a container, but I found that to be too much work for several common domains that I use from different profiles.
I do still have rules set up for some things like Github, which should always use my personal container. That's nice since no matter what mode I'm working in, it opens correctly and I don't have to log into Github for each container. And I have stuff like Linkedin and Facebook firewalled into a social container.
The problem is there's no single right answer about how isolated profiles should be.
Firefox offers two options:
1. full profiles, which are almost completely isolated. They're separate processes, the data can live on separate parts of your computer. I do not want that to go away, I like being able to have almost separate Firefox installs on my computer.
2. containers, which are lighter profiles than Chrome and attempt to isolate sites without isolating browser settings. I also really like these, and I don't want them to go away, although I wouldn't mind them getting some additional controls for segmenting more of the browser.
What a lot of people want is:
3. Something in the middle between those two things.
I'm not opposed to that, but I don't think it's necessarily settled that Chrome's approach is perfect or that different users might not want some things to be less separated than Chrome's approach or more separated.
"Something in the middle" can mean a lot of different things, and there are a lot of users that sound like they're asking for the same things (better profiles), when I suspect in actuality many of them have very different ideas about what they want that to look like.
I'm down for Firefox offering more options there, but I don't know that there is a singular version of profiles that would satisfy everyone, I suspect the only way this actually works is if it's somewhat configurable. And I definitely don't want the less isolated version of profiles to replace the real actually isolated profiles that Firefox has now. I want at least the option to keep my profiles as separate binaries.
Rather than making a completely separate 3rd option, maybe the better option is for containers to have more customization and to allow more isolation? Firefox already doesn't really expose containers without an extension (which is probably a mistake, but whatever) so having different extensions that are hooking in differently and could turn on/off different isolation features might be a middle ground. It does get a little weird if you also want to also isolate addons, but...
Has that actually been established, or is it still just speculation? I doubt the contract actually says that, though of course it might affect future renewals.
I'm at least somewhat skeptical here. The value gained by Google from all those searches is not exclusively in the ads shown. It might lower the value of the contract, but I would be at least somewhat surprised if it lowered it to zero.
There is value from seeing which result a user apparently likes best, which lets you train your search engine better. But Google already has a ton of this and the marginal contribution from Firefox users must be minimal. Instead, probably a different, smaller, search engine would probably pay. Though, even then, simply the cost of serving acceptable search results could be higher than the marginal value of the data?
Either way, this goes from a contract bringing in hundreds of millions to maybe tens at best?
To date, Mozilla refuses to let me donate to directly fund Firefox.
I can donate to Mozilla, but then they'll take my money and pursue whatever their current distraction of the month is. I can pay for Pocket, but then I'm paying for Pocket, which I don't need or want. I can't just give them money and say "I really, really want this money to go directly to Firefox, not to another side project".
Until they offer that as an option, they cannot claim to have tried everything.
I'd love to have an option to pay for Firefox Sync. It's by far my favorite Firefox feature, I use it every day, and I'd happily pay for it even if they just said "this just funds ongoing development and offers no added features", though they'd get more revenue if they find something to offer for paying users.
Through the way things are set up, Firefox has Mozilla Foundation as its number 1 priority. Corporation makes money for Foundation, Foundation steers everything.
Mozilla Foundation serves the interests of Mozilla Corporation (including Firefox), and Mozilla Corporation in turn serves the interests of its CEO Mitchell Baker.[1]
Foundation makes money for Corporation, CEO steers everything (literally, as CEO of Corporation and Chairman of Foundation).
In what way does the Mozilla Foundation serve the interests of the Mozilla Corporation? Not financially, that's for sure. How else?
That Mozilla Corporation serves the interests of Mitchell Baker, that I can believe. Note that Mitchell Baker is also one of the six members of the board of directors of Mozilla Foundation.
> Foundation makes money for Corporation
What? No, that's completely incorrect. Corporation makes some money, mainly from deals with search engines, all of which goes from Corporation to Foundation. No money is ever transferred the other way around.
Corporation is fully owned by Foundation. Corporation brings in money for Foundation, Foundation steers Corporation.
You may choose between Chrome, Chrome (Edge), Chrome (Brave), Chrome (Opera), Chrome (Vivaldi), Chrome (Chromium), Chrome (the others), Safari, and the remainder of which Firefox is probably the most known.
The way the interweb currently works is bringing stuff into my computer, and showing it to me here. Even with streaming, I see it 'here'. So My PC, My Rules.
If the interweb changes and I see it 'there' instead of 'here' we can discuss again.
Use Firefox people, before it is too late.