Run firefox binary with -P switch.

This might also interest you: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-use-firefox-contain...

> The biggest blocker for me has been the lack of convenient profile switching.

Switching profiles can be as easy as restarting the browser. For instance, you could create an icon on your desktop for each profile, or just a single icon to run :

     firefox   --ProfileManager

And you'll get a menu to choose which profile you want to use.

> I also can't open links in anything but the default profile

Interesting. Running on Linux here, and links open in whatever profile is currently in use.

That is interesting. Googling "firefox open links in active profile" provides plenty of results about the same issue.

I do know there's a flag to launch the profile manager, but I find that to be a nuisance. I don't want to launch it every time, because I'm constantly launching and killing browser instances. Dedicated shortcuts cuts out that step, but in my case would require 5+ shortcuts via .desktop files on my Linux machine, and a matching set of icons on my Windows machine, with the mental overhead that comes from selecting and switching.

The extension is much closer to the behavior I want (Chrome's).

Conversely, I experience a frustrating Chrome bug on Linux, where after some amount of time, external links open a new instance of every profile, and an error window. I've had no luck troubleshooting that, and it helped motivate me to try Firefox again.

Make a .desktop file that uses --ProfileManager and --no-remote , and then just open it per profile

"can be as easy as restarting the browser"

That is nothing like "convenient profile switching".

> That is nothing like "convenient profile switching".

It takes a few seconds on my machine, and has the same result as switching profiles. But I accept your situation may be different, and would be interested to know what you see as its deficiencies.

I've not Firefox for a while, and never used multiple profiles, but in Chrome, I just click my face at the top right, choose work profile from the dropdown and I get a work profile window alongside my personal profile window that I still keep open. Or I can right click a link from my personal profile and choose "open link as -> work". Incognito windows are like a special profile that gets deleted when you close the window.

Are you saying that in Firefox you have to exit the entire browser to do the same thing?

> Are you saying that in Firefox you have to exit the entire browser to do the same thing?

If you look at the comment to which I was responding, the poster wanted his history and BOOKMARKS replaced when switching profiles. What you're talking about are containers, that do not replace your bookmarks (for example). For what you're talking about, there is no need to restart Firefox.

If what you want to do is have a completely different browser, with separate bookmarks and other settings, then you can start another instance, with a separate profile. It is very easy and takes a few seconds at most. And in fact, there is no need to shut down other profiles if you want more than one open at a time, so you can maintain all your current state when doing so.

My solution for managing profiles consists of keeping a pinned tab pointing to "about:profiles". From there, I can launch any other profile in parallel to the current browser instance by clicking on its "Launch profile in new browser" button.

You might want to try out Arc if you're a Mac user – this was top on my wishlist from Firefox, too, and they're hitting it out of the park.