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Dear Foxies,

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Dear Foxies. Having used Chrome exclusively ever since the word Chrome was no longer just, er, hm well Chrome the element, I am now a confirmed Fox, too.

But I dare say I feel a bit let down by something I saw pop up on my screen, despite following the guidelines that Firefox suggested. That being the advise given to me suggesting separate profiles be created in order to prevent the merging of information between two separate user accounts. I learned of this much later than when I learned about tab containers in that It would allow two separate accounts logged in the same device to keep from sharing and merging information. But when I attempted to do this, I was warned that book marks and other bits and pieces would merge with the other account signing later. The suggestion was that separate profiles be created. I did that, but when the other profile signed in after the first was logged out, the same warning appeared that tabs etc would sinc with the next account to log in. Please let me know what it is that I have misunderstood. If this is true, please let me know what the Container and Profiles are really supposed to do as they are not doing what I thought Firefox said it does so well. If this is the way it is supposed to be, please tell me why anyone would think this is something a user may want.

Thank you kindly J

Dear Foxies. Having used Chrome exclusively ever since the word Chrome was no longer just, er, hm well Chrome the element, I am now a confirmed Fox, too. But I dare say I feel a bit let down by something I saw pop up on my screen, despite following the guidelines that Firefox suggested. That being the advise given to me suggesting separate profiles be created in order to prevent the merging of information between two separate user accounts. I learned of this much later than when I learned about tab containers in that It would allow two separate accounts logged in the same device to keep from sharing and merging information. But when I attempted to do this, I was warned that book marks and other bits and pieces would merge with the other account signing later. The suggestion was that separate profiles be created. I did that, but when the other profile signed in after the first was logged out, the same warning appeared that tabs etc would sinc with the next account to log in. Please let me know what it is that I have misunderstood. If this is true, please let me know what the Container and Profiles are really supposed to do as they are not doing what I thought Firefox said it does so well. If this is the way it is supposed to be, please tell me why anyone would think this is something a user may want. Thank you kindly J

All Replies (2)

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Hi J, each Firefox installation, and each Firefox profile on each device, is born with an independent settings folder. You can share data between these installations/profiles by logging them into the same Firefox Account and using the Firefox Sync service (it's enabled by default). If you do not want to share data between different installations/profiles, you can disable Firefox Sync on your Firefox Account. More info on that in this article:

How do I choose what information to sync on Firefox?

Regarding Containers:

Your Container tabs, regular tabs, and private window tabs, are all part of one installation/profile, but they can have separate cookie jars to silo some of your browsing. In effect, this simulates opening a site in a different installation/profile. This is useful if, say, you want to use the identical bookmarks and add-ons but want to log in to two different email accounts with the same provider without them interfering with one another.

Hopefully that all makes some sense.

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P.S. It is optional to log Firefox into a Firefox Account. I only have one profile that is connected, the others are all their own little worlds.