Browser tab profiles

I do not believe that any browser today is capable of allowing users to work on multiple profiles in one window or across multiple tabs. Instead, we have ‘containers’ in Firefox but this is not complete profile isolation. We also have ‘private’ or ‘incognito’ functionality which comes close, but it is still not in the same window. I think that browsers are missing a trick here.

I use two profiles with my Firefox setup; one which deletes cookies, history and site data at close and another which does not. My main daily profile is almost like the ‘private’ Firefox window, where nothing is saved across sessions. My second profile is used for browsing sites where I want to remain signed-in and have cookies kept. That’s just my workflow and how I like it. With separate profiles, I enjoy true segregation; in my main profile I have full privacy between sessions with no cookie tracking, and this is my default.

Using two different windows is a tiny bit inconvenient as I have to constantly switch between the two when I’m working on something. Trying to locate the other window on the task bar is sometimes fun, especially when I have too many things open, as one does. I really wish that a profile change was as simple as switching to a different tab in the same browser window.

Tab profiles

Why can’t we have tab profiles? I understand the underlying profile architecture, but surely it can’t be that difficult to implement? The main root application profile can still handle core settings such as themes and other general browser settings and preferences, but allow each tab to act like its own little mini-profile. Call them pseudo-profiles: a place where Personal, Work, and Shopping can be kept completely independent from each other. For anyone who likes a tidy separation between their online selves, that would be rather handy.

Containerisation in its current form is not full separation. It still shares the same extensions, global settings, and everything else, so it is more of a cosmetic division than true isolation. If ‘private’ and ‘incognito’ windows can give us a taste of separation, why can’t we have something more flexible and integrated?

Until someone builds it, I suppose that I will have to continue fumbling along with multiple windows and profiles.