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Can I keep Firefox DevEd and Firefox isolated?

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  • Igcine ukuphendulwa ngu G

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Hello Ladies and Gentlemen!

Please read my post completely before answering! Thank you!

I'm using

  • Firefox DevEd (manually installed) as my primary driver and
  • the standard Firefox (installed from the package manager) for leisure/hobby related browsing

each with its own Mozilla account and profile, on Manjaro KDE. Sadly, either Firefox sees all the profiles. They have usually different versions. If I mistakenly start one of the Foxes in the other Fox's profile, the newer version of Firefox (usually Firefox DevEd) autostarts migrating that profile. Which it renders the profile "corrupted" for its intended Firefox.

I'd like to have Firefox DevEd unable to see profiles (or anything else) intended for the standard Firefox and vice versa. Or at least unable to botch profiles. I do not want to disable migration or use no. Given that Firefox configuration location is hard-coded, I'm not having high hopes for my wish.

I'm wondering if there is a way to keep two Firefox installations completely isolated, other than running them in containers.

Thank you for your time!

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen! Please read my post completely before answering! Thank you! I'm using * Firefox DevEd (manually installed) as my primary driver and * the standard Firefox (installed from the package manager) for leisure/hobby related browsing each with its own Mozilla account and profile, on Manjaro KDE. Sadly, either Firefox sees all the profiles. They have usually different versions. If I mistakenly start one of the Foxes in the other Fox's profile, the newer version of Firefox (usually Firefox DevEd) autostarts migrating that profile. Which it renders the profile "corrupted" for its intended Firefox. I'd like to have Firefox DevEd unable to see profiles (or anything else) intended for the standard Firefox and vice versa. Or at least unable to botch profiles. I do not want to disable migration or use no. Given that Firefox configuration location is hard-coded, I'm not having high hopes for my wish. I'm wondering if there is a way to keep two Firefox installations completely isolated, other than running them in containers. Thank you for your time!

Isisombululo esikhethiwe

You can create a profile anywhere on your system, remove reference to it in the profile manager by removing it and selecting "Don't Delete Files" then create a .desktop file that directly launches it:

Exec=firefox --profile /path/to/profile
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Isisombululo Esikhethiwe

You can create a profile anywhere on your system, remove reference to it in the profile manager by removing it and selecting "Don't Delete Files" then create a .desktop file that directly launches it:

Exec=firefox --profile /path/to/profile
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Thank you!

I understand now that the issue is profile managers of all installs sharing a single configuration.

I ended up doing the following:

  1. uninstalled the Firefox installed by the package manager.
  2. created 3 copies of Firefox Developer Edition (development, leisure, privacy-oriented - name that one "Firefox Focus" :D); they'll share nothing (I hope) and will get upgraded at the same time (that's the main reason I used the same version of Firefox).
  3. created 3 Bash scripts to have them open the right profile.
  4. deleted all profiles from the profile manager configuration, so they would not end opened automatically by accident; if somehow a Firefox executable get launched directly, it'll just create a new profile.
  5. created 3 desktop files in ~/.local/share/applications/ for calling the 3 Bash scripts; I'm using the one I named "Firefox Focus" as the default browser.

The Bash scripts contain something like (took it from the version installed by the package manager): '#!/bin/sh exec /some/path/firefox-focus/firefox --profile /path/to/focus-profile/ "$@"

Oops, I forgot which profile I used to open this :D

Okulungisiwe ngu G