: Separate instances of Firefox require separate profiles
"Walter Dnes" <waltdnes-SLHPyeZ9y/[email protected]> Sun, 22 Jun 2014 14:33:52 -0400
| Newsgroups | gmane.org.user-groups.linux.tolug |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
I finally figured out how to run separate instances of Firefox, as ***COMPLETELY SEPARATE PROCESSES***. Namely, that you need ***A SEPARATE PROFILE FOR EACH INSTANCE***. Let's start with 2 profiles "trusted" and "20140622". From the command line, I execute the following commands... firefox -new-instance -P trusted & firefox -new-instance -P 20140622 & ps -ef | grep firefox kill -3 2827 ps -ef | grep firefox You won't need the "&" if you launch from a desktop or window-manager launcher. Ignore the "g_slice_set_config: assertion" warning for now. Here's the screen capture from xterm... ####################################################################### [d531][waltdnes][~] firefox -new-instance -P trusted & [2] 2827 [1] Done firefox -new-instance [d531][waltdnes][~] (process:2827): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_slice_set_config: assertion 'sys_page_size == 0' failed firefox -new-instance -P 20140622 & [3] 2860 [d531][waltdnes][~] (process:2860): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_slice_set_config: assertion 'sys_page_size == 0' failed ps -ef | grep firefox waltdnes 2827 2740 2 13:31 pts/7 00:00:00 firefox -new-instance -P trusted waltdnes 2860 2740 6 13:31 pts/7 00:00:01 firefox -new-instance -P 20140622 waltdnes 2902 2740 0 13:32 pts/7 00:00:00 grep --color=auto firefox [d531][waltdnes][~] kill -3 2827 [d531][waltdnes][~] ps -ef | grep firefox waltdnes 2860 2740 0 13:31 pts/7 00:00:01 firefox -new-instance -P 20140622 waltdnes 2919 2740 0 13:33 pts/7 00:00:00 grep --color=auto firefox [2]- Quit firefox -new-instance -P trusted ####################################################################### In the above example, I launched 2 instances of Firefox, and verified their existance by running "ps -ef | grep firefox". Then I killed one of the instances, and verified its killing, and that the other one was still present, with "ps -ef | grep firefox". So if you have some sites that you visit regularly, you can have a separate profile for each one. This has some advantages... 1) You can have totally different customized setups (including different add-ons) for each site. 2) Third-party cookies left by trackers when you're on site A using profile A, will not be readable by the same third-party when you're on site B, using profile B, making tracking you more difficult and less reliable... one... two... three... aaaaawwwwwww. 3) If you have a whole bunch of websites open, and one of them crashes Firefox, or hangs it so you need to kill it, you don't end up taking down all your browsers. -- Walter Dnes <waltdnes-SLHPyeZ9y/[email protected]> I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications -- The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings: http://gtalug.org/ TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists