Re: [gentoo-user] Separate instances of Firefox require separate profiles

[Mick]

On Monday 23 Jun 2014 06:33:12 Walter Dnes wrote:
>   I vaguely remember a while ago, somebody on this list asked about
> running separate instances of Firefox.  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 "default".  From the command line,
> execute the following commands...
>
> firefox -new-instance -P trusted &
> firefox -new-instance -P default &
> ps -ef | grep firefox
>
>   You won't need the "&" if you launch from a desktop or window-manager
> launcher.  In the above example, I launched 2 instances of Firefox, and
> verified their existance by running "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) Profiles, including cookies, are stored in separate directories.
> Therefore 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.

Taking this a step further I create additional one-off profile directories in 
/tmp, which are deleted when I reboot (this is a laptop), which ensures that 
tracing between sites does not happen.

Note, you will also need to remove any flash cookies (LSOs) which sit in your 
~/ and are not deleted, unless you have installed the Better Privacy addon.  
For a more pedestrian approach:

 rm -Rf .macromedia/Flash_Player/*

-- 
Regards,
Mick