back
129 comments
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...

> Now that container management is available directly in Firefox, I’d prefer to use the native implementation if possible.

It's been available for years in stable, including the management page on the settings, if you enable them in about:config (privacy.userContext.enabled and privacy.userContext.ui.enabled). Plenty of us have been using them for a long long time without extensions.

Based on the list of features, the announcement appears to just be flipping those settings on by default.

> 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?

Most likely those addons flipped at least the first setting and just used the native implementation with their own interface. After Quantum and Electrolysis, Firefox was a lot more locked down and addons couldn't do stuff like this on their own. There was a previous thread a few days ago where a bunch of us were confused because we had these enabled and didn't remember enabling it, and some replies suggested the addons flipped the about:config setting.

Edit: I just found my old comment in this post, the old post I was referring to is this one. It's been resurfaced from 3 days 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.

> 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).

> 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.

> [...] integration with Mozilla VPN or your own proxy [...]

This one is one of my favorite things about Firefox containers. I love being able to only route a given streaming or banking site through my home network when traveling without incurring the latency and bandwidth hit on my other browsing.

Unfortunately Firefox's native "VPN" (the new, built-in, free, Fastly-powered one that's actually a proxy) seems to have broken this feature; I hope they'll fix that at some point.

I use the proxy feature extensively as a network administrator, it is quite frequent that I need to SSH tunnel to get to the Web UI of a remote resource (for security or at least as often to bypass a routing deficiency I am troubleshooting) and before Multi-account Containers I'd basically have to fire up a completely different browser since the proxy settings I use would control every tab and every site I tried to reach.

With Multi-account containers I get to choose which tabs use the proxy :)

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."

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

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.

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)

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.
Profiles and Containers are a bit of a peanut butter and jelly situation. There's uses for both separately, there's a strong intersection of what they do well that you use either for (topping a slice of toast), and then together they also can make a beautiful sandwich.

Profiles form very different windows. You can decorate them to make them obvious at a glance which Profile is which. Up until recent Profile improvements, switching between them and managing them used to be a lot of work, including managing which one was the default for links from other applications.

Containers are tabs in a shared window. They get marked with a subtle color bar (the colors you choose for each container) and that's mostly it, they otherwise "blend in" to the same shared window. Reopening tabs in a different container is easy. Opening new tabs in a different container is easy. Containers share a few more things than Profiles do (but are still isolated in important ways such as cookies).

I have every site that needs my Google account pinned to always open in a specific container. The boundary is hard where I need it (the privacy protections) but soft for make workflows easier. If I find a YouTube embed in the wild somewhere that needs a login for one of the many restrictive reasons some do, I just click the normal link (or middle click for new tab) and YouTube opens in my Google container automatically. I don't need to copy paste between windows (or use Sync's sometimes slow tab sync engine). If I accidental hit a "log in with Google" button it opens up in the Google container and I know something is wrong because I don't expect random other websites in that container. (Relatedly, I finally installed uBlock Origin not to get rid of ads, but solely to get rid of that awful annoying content-obscuring popup for Google login on sites like Medium. I feel like there should be far more backlash on Google for being a bad actor doing that.)

I also use Profiles for alternate identities, things where a very different looking window are helpful to know I'm in the right place. Containers and Profiles are useful together.

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?

I should not have to:

- Install add-ons like "Temporary Containers"

- And if some people do they should certainly not have to deal with a bloated container list with temp container names

- Just let me select how I want this "containers" feature - like "open all links in unique temp containers" (unless I select otherwise or set otherwise for certain websites, then go to that container), maybe let me select a sub rule like "based on domain" or "subdomains" (group tabs/windows)

- I should not have to go and toggle "Limit to designated sites" in every bloody container I have created and I have created (had to create!) way too many already.

There are apparently other container add-ons like Temporary Containers (and a Plus ones as well) and Auto Containers but I really should not have to do all that.

MAC is a great add-on and far head of any browser out there in this regard but the feature has been sort of "contained" for far too long and not been made flexible/usable enough.

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.
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?

I am in too many MS365 orgs. Firefox containers are the best solution to manage this, but, I simply have too many issues with Teams (especially with Teams org switching, sometimes needed when someone invites your org account into another) and I find myself back in Chrome and Edge, deleting config folders etc (all in Linux). It’s not fair!!!
Multi-account containers is the main reason why I stick to Firefox. Safari and Chrome also have container features (more like profiles, really), but they don't work the same: you open tabs in a separate profile and you can't have tabs, each in a different container, side by side.
I'm curious about Mozilla's seeming shift in strategy (possibly it was awhile ago and I overlooked it):

For a long time, with relatively limited (compared to Google and Apple) development resources, they focused on minimizing upkeep and technical debt. They added and maintained features appealing to the vast majority, the non-technical users, and left the rest to extensions.

Now I'm seeing geek and power user favorites like a built-in color picker, PDF editing features, and now multi-account containers moved into the browser. What changed? Are they focusing on different audience? Do they have new resources so that they can afford maintaining all these additional, more niche features?

I am a big user of the multi-account containers extension. It is nice to keep banking in one container, Amazon in its own container, social media in its own, and so on.

Syncing across device and always reopening a certain site/domain inside a specific container are must-have features, so I think I'll keep using the extension until they are available natively.

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?
Please Firefox, just implement workspaces. I'm tired of 10 windows, that I have created to segregate for each type of browsing, launching at startup and then me accidentally closing one and again having to manually add the tabs back. Don't even need to make it mandatory, just make it optional. Vivaldi has spoiled me with this and it is very hard to switch to another browser that doesn't have it.

Excellent job making containers native. Just go one more step.

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?

I have had four or five different Firefox profiles for years. That nicely separates everything I do in these different contexts. I've never understood what capability containers really add to that. Maybe this was explained back when containers were introduced and I missed it, but it really seems like Mozilla has spent a lot of work here for something that already existed with profiles.

Edit: this is addressed in another comment thread, no need to respond here.

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.

Extensions per container would be a great addition if they don't already have that planned or available. Sometimes an extensions for privacy or security interferes with a website and if I could fork my base enabled extensions then disable a few for just that site it could keep things more compact and organized instead of having to clone a profile for every website with issues.
This is not new, and it's weird that this blog post doesn't acknowledge that.

A a snapshot from 2017 [0] of their docs show the UI for this very feature. A snapshot from 2023 of their knowledge base [1] says that "Firefox Containers is a basic built-in feature".

I just created a new profile in Firefox 140 ESR, started it in safe mode (which disables extensions), enabled "privacy.userContext.enabled" in about:config - and there you go, native containers accessible from File -> New Container Tab.

I'm not talking about the Multi-Account Containers extension. There are no extensions installed or enabled. It comes with Firefox 140 ESR, without extensions.

The Containers feature is already a "native, first-party feature" in older versions of Firefox. Firefox already has a "first-party version of containers". They have already brought it "directly into the heart of Firefox for all to benefit".

So what are they talking about in this blog post? Are they simply flipping the config setting to true by default? Are they replacing the existing "Containers" feature with a new feature which is also called "Containers"? Are they rebranding the Multi-Account Containers extension as "Containers" and making it built-in (seemingly not, since apparently "Not all of the features of the add-on are available in the first-party version of containers").

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20170821073747/https://developer...

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20230307151023/https://support.m...

I'd love to be able to specify containers on bookmarks. That's the biggest missing feature for me still.
The only feature I need to make containers complete is setting a container as the current container for external links.

It's a real pain to click links in slack/etc open in the wrong account. I would be okay with some type of "links currently open in which container" setting, and changing that as needed. Or some selector when external.

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.

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.
Containers are really awesome and I thought Mozilla would jump on them. But nothing ever happened they are barebones and there is so much more that could be added. The only thing we have is taking them from an extension to in-browser which changes nothing for the user.
Huh, I'd been using this through Sidebery for so long I thought it was a built in feature.
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.

Is there a way to assign certain domains to always open in a certain container? e.g., if I type the url of my bank that it immediately becomes a banking container? That would be great.
Very cool. This should be a default feature in all browsers.
For once, that's a great thing. I'm glad Firefox includes it directly into the app, but could we also use that opportunity to get it to work on Android ?
Does Chrome have this yet? It's basically the single feature I use Firefox for. And no, container tabs & incognito mode don't count.
Oh this seems very useful, I hope we'll get it on Chrome sometime. At the moment I have to use profiles to achieve the same thing
Curious how is this better than using multiple profiles (config:profiles) to isolate one set of behaviors from another?

I’ve been doing that for years.

Unless they stop happily providing all kind of hardware info to the trackers that will trivially identify your session, this privacy circus is fooling no one. Anyway, Mozilla agains spying is as bees agains honey. Just recently they push FIFA from start page, then added some third party site with games, all while their codebase is leaking memory and consuming CPU and wasted more electricity in 10 years than all AI datacenters wordwide.
I stopped fighting with Firefox to use containers the way i wanted a long time ago...

Nowadays i just use different Firefox instances.

oAuth is still painful with containers:

1. Set a domain to always open in a container

2. Click login with Google which redirects to another container

3. oAuth handshake is done which redirects to website 1

4. Handshake fails because of authorization_code mismatch

You could argue that you shouldn't be using oAuth if you care about privacy but it would be nice if it could be handled.

So when I long click on new tab and choose a work tab, it’s … just the same with a different color?
This is one of the killer Firefox features. I'm so happy to see it's getting added by default!
Are they shipping it on Android, too?
Nice to see this land as part of FF now instead of an extension. Very useful feature!
tree style tabs and container-locked windows. that will make firefox perfect.