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Profiles in main toolbar

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  Profiles in main toolbar knuttle <keith_nuttle@yahoo.com> - 2026-06-10 07:28 -0400
    Re: Profiles in main toolbar Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2026-06-10 14:45 +0100
    Re: Profiles in main toolbar "Alan K." <alan@invalid.com> - 2026-06-10 10:35 -0400
      Re: Profiles in main toolbar Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2026-06-10 15:46 +0100
        Re: Profiles in main toolbar "Alan K." <alan@invalid.com> - 2026-06-10 11:19 -0400
        Re: Profiles in main toolbar Frank Miller <miller@posteo.ee> - 2026-06-11 18:37 +0200
          Re: Profiles in main toolbar Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2026-06-11 17:49 +0100
    Re: Profiles in main toolbar NFN Smith <worldoff9908@gmail.com> - 2026-06-10 08:58 -0700
    Re: Profiles in main toolbar VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2026-06-10 15:00 -0500

#17300 — Profiles in main toolbar

Do you create a new profile enough times per week to justify having a 
permanent button on the main tool bar?

I have the same profile that was added to this computer when it was 
purchased 2 years ago.

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#17303

knuttle wrote:

> Do you create a new profile enough times per week to justify having a 
> permanent button on the main tool bar?

No, I only have one profile, I don't have a toolbar icon for "profiles" 
though, only an icon for my firefox account, below which is a submenu 
for profiles, do you see different to that?

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#17306

On 6/10/26 7:28 AM, knuttle wrote:
> Do you create a new profile enough times per week to justify having a
> permanent button on the main tool bar?
> 
> I have the same profile that was added to this computer when it was
> purchased 2 years ago.
I have two profiles, one is my goto Firefox icon and profile pointing to 'firefox -P 
default', the 2nd is 'firefox -P plain' that points to a stripped down do extension or css 
profile and has a funny custom B&W icon.
Only one is on the toolbar, the other is just on the menu, I use it so infrequently.

-- 
Mint 22.3,  Thunderbird 140.11.1esr,  Firefox 151.0.3
     Alan K.

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#17308

"Alan K." wrote:

> knuttle wrote:
> >> Do you create a new profile enough times per week to justify having a
>> permanent button on the main tool bar?
>>
>> I have the same profile that was added to this computer when it was
>> purchased 2 years ago.
> > I have two profiles, one is my goto Firefox icon and profile pointing to
> 'firefox -P default', the 2nd is 'firefox -P plain' that points to a 
> stripped down do extension or css profile and has a funny custom B&W icon.
> Only one is on the toolbar, the other is just on the menu, I use it so 
> infrequently.
What's the distinction between these new-style profiles that show-up on 
the toolbar, and ones that show-up within "firefox -p" ?

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#17309

On 6/10/26 10:46 AM, Andy Burns wrote:
> "Alan K." wrote:
> 
>> knuttle wrote:
>>>> Do you create a new profile enough times per week to justify having a
>>> permanent button on the main tool bar?
>>>
>>> I have the same profile that was added to this computer when it was
>>> purchased 2 years ago.
>>> I have two profiles, one is my goto Firefox icon and profile pointing to
>> 'firefox -P default', the 2nd is 'firefox -P plain' that points to a
>> stripped down do extension or css profile and has a funny custom B&W icon.
>> Only one is on the toolbar, the other is just on the menu, I use it so
>> infrequently.
> What's the distinction between these new-style profiles that show-up on
> the toolbar, and ones that show-up within "firefox -p" ?
> 
On my system, each icon launches -p with a different profile name (see above).
That way I don't have to play 'pick and choose' when I launch firefox.
You could make just one button and launch 'firefox -p' and pick, but why?

-- 
Mint 22.3,  Thunderbird 140.11.1esr,  Firefox 151.0.3
     Alan K.

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#17314

Andy Burns wrote:
> "Alan K." wrote:
>> knuttle wrote:
>> >> Do you create a new profile enough times per week to justify having a
>>> permanent button on the main tool bar?
>>>
>>> I have the same profile that was added to this computer when it was
>>> purchased 2 years ago.
>> > I have two profiles, one is my goto Firefox icon and profile pointing to
>> 'firefox -P default', the 2nd is 'firefox -P plain' that points to a 
>> stripped down do extension or css profile and has a funny custom B&W icon.
>> Only one is on the toolbar, the other is just on the menu, I use it so 
>> infrequently.
> What's the distinction between these new-style profiles that show-up on 
> the toolbar, and ones that show-up within "firefox -p" ?

The new button on the toolbar belongs to the 'new' integrated profile
manager whereas there is no regular button for the 'old' one "firefox -p".
Mozilla is driving both managers now simultaneously. But be careful if
you use both ways; it's gonna fuck up your different profiles. BTDT.

In case you don't need or want the new profile manager yet you can
disable it via about:config with "browser.profiles.enabled" set to false.

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#17315

Frank Miller wrote:

> Mozilla is driving both managers now simultaneously. But be careful if
> you use both ways; it's gonna fuck up your different profiles.

When the new type showed-up a version or two back, I accidentally 
created a new profile without realising, that led to my firefox gaining 
a "badge" on its icon in the taskbar.

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#17311

knuttle wrote:
> Do you create a new profile enough times per week to justify having a 
> permanent button on the main tool bar?
> 
> I have the same profile that was added to this computer when it was 
> purchased 2 years ago.

I use multiple profiles, although I rarely create a new one.

What I do in each profile is that I have a bookmark in the bookmarks 
toolbar that resolves to about:profiles.  When I view that, I see a list 
of all the defined profiles, and one of the options offered for each 
profile is "open profile in new window".

With this approach, I frequently have two profiles open simultaneously, 
one for personal use and one for work use, where the two have differing 
sets of preferences, including permissions grants in NoScript.  I also 
have a "bare metal" profile that is set to use mostly default settings 
(other than discarding cookies and user history at the end of a session, 
and setting the home page to use an export of my bookmarks). That 
profile is useful for making a quick test if I encounter a page that is 
not working well on my other profiles, and where I can tell if site 
behavior is a result of my personal preferences, or if I'm seeing some 
sort of limitation that is inherent to Firefox (especially one of the 
sites that assumes the world uses Google Chrome exclusively).

Smith

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#17313

knuttle <keith_nuttle@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Do you create a new profile enough times per week to justify having a 
> permanent button on the main tool bar?
> 
> I have the same profile that was added to this computer when it was 
> purchased 2 years ago.

It is not just about /creating/ profiles, but also /using/ them.  Some
folks have different profiles, like for home and work, or for different
users of the same shared computer, and want to /switch/ between them, or
to have test profiles for diagnostic testing.  The button isn't just for
creating profiles, but mostly for switching between them *if* you use
multiple profiles.

Do I create multiple profiles every week?  No, and neither does anyone
else, so you propose a false argument.  Sorry, I'm not Mozilla
collecting logistics (if you leave it enabled) on how Firefox gets used,
so I don't know the percentage of Firefox users that have more than one
profile (the one they created when they first used Firefox).  Most users
don't even know about profiles, but of those that do then maybe they
would like a convenient means of *switching* between them, and by using
a GUI element instead of having separate shortcuts running different
command lines of "firefox.exe -p <profilename>".

You obviously don't use profiles.  Neither do I (well, other than for
diagnostic testing, but I create the test profile, test, and delete).
But I know there are a lot of users that do use profiles, but I don't
know the percentage of user that use multiple profiles.  A GUI element
(toolbar button) is probably more convenient to those users than having
to create and maintain a shortcut for each profile.

I would agree that having a profile switch button taking up window space
is superfluous when there is only 1 profile.  If you don't have multiple
profiles defined, there is no point to the button.

While you only use 1 profile, did you run the Profile Manager to check
only 1 was defined?

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-remove-switch-firefox-profiles

I haven't looked into the following, but apparently Firefox now has 2
profile managers that don't interoperate with each other.  See:

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1pm9tso/firefoxs_new_profile_manager_is_fundamentally/
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1996240

It's almost like 2 dev teams worked on this, like a prior team replaced
with a later team, and the later team went their own way ignorant of how
the old way worked.  Else, I don't see what would motivate Mozilla to
bother with a new profile scheme.  To be blunt, Mozilla fucked up.  I
didn't know about profiles when I first started using Firefox, but it
sure didn't much effort to learn.  Basically learn how to start the
Profile Manager, and start using them.  Easier than putting together a
baby crib.

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