One significant advantage of the Firefox model is the ability to bind domains to a container. I cannot open my Internet Banking in the same container as the hacking forums I might frequent, it will automatically launch in the correct container. I use Chrome personas a lot (I have 8 on the go currently) because, frankly I like Chrome more, but container URL isolation is a better implementation of workload isolation. IMHO. I'm constantly opening URLs in the wrong container because I just ctrl+T and start typing.

Actually you've inspired me to use a 'timewaster' blocking extension to prevent some URLs from loading in my main personas. Might achieve the same thing.

I've created a little app for myself that opens the right (Firefox) profile when another application tries to start the browser. It's registered as the default browser so it handles all the cases.

I guess I could also write a userscript that handles the links being opened from the browser itself. Like the timewaster extension you mentioned but also starts the right instance in background.

That sounds as a good idea, how does that script look like?

Simple command line program that looks at its arguments and decides what browser to open. Nothing fancy.

To each their own.

I don’t need a whole separate Chrome install just so I can open an AWS console in each one. Seems like a lot of overhead for two tabs.

Correct, you don't. Chrome profiles use the same installation of Chrome. There is no real overhead, and the only limitation is that profiles must use different windows.

I’m aware it’s a single installation of Chrome. But it runs a second copy for the other other profile. That’s a lot of resource overhead.

Also requiring another window is a lot of extra mental overhead to keep track of all the windows.

For example right now I have 12 Firefox containers running. They are 15 tabs in a single window.

With Chrome profiles, I’d need 12 windows, most with just one tab.

I don't have a use for Personas in Chrome, but it's regrettable that profiles in Firefox aren't more user friendly, because I need different proxy/root certificates settings.

Accessing my company's VPN requires proxying all internet traffic and accepting their own special root certificate, via McAfee's crap and thus can theoretically MITM my communications.

Firefox can be configured to not accept such root certificates. So I'd need a company profile and a personal profile.

But unfortunately opening profiles in Firefox is a pain. And my MacOS doesn't consider the opened windows as part of the same app, but on the other hand you can't assign them a specific icon, so switching between them is a pain.

If Chrome's profiles allowed me to disallow custom system-wide root certificates, I would switch to it. But Chrome has no such settings.

You can install Firefox developer edition in parallel for your work. It has a blue icon that separates it.

+Beta +Nightly, each with a different icon

It's annoying that Firefox has the same feature (profiles) since basically forever, but no UI for quick access. I assume it's coming as they now show the signed-in user in the toolbar.

I'm in the same boat. I got excited when i heard about containers in Firefox but was disappointed when i actually used it for the reasons you mentioned.

I'm still on Chrome mostly because of this, even though profiles are a crutch and, for example I cannot force Chrome to open specific URLs in specific profiles--this would be a killer feature for me.

They both have their usage. But I found switching profiles in Chrome is way more convenient: you can just click the top right button and choose another one.

For Firefox, in pre-57 era, there was an add-on called "Profilist" which can do the same (and better), but unfortunately you can't use it (or do something similar) more in web-ext.

With this

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

you don't have to click anything — press `Ctrl+.`, and a number button from 1 to (however many containers you have configured.)

I switched it to a different combination so it can be used with one hand.

I meant different profiles (with actual config folders for each profile), not accounts

Same here. I use different Chrome and Firefox profiles for different tasks. One for work, one for banking, one for news+HN,..., and last but not least one for fully automated tasks with the kantu browser macro extension.