Would this workflow be achievable?

[ArchangeGabriel]

Hi,

I’ve finally had the time to took a half reading my backlog here. From my experience with this add-on and my reading of a lot of things that have been posted here, I’ve designed what I think would be my ideal workflow for using Firefox/Containers and co:

• Default context = permanent private mode (e.g. Proposal: Private browsing by default, or Firefox Focus mode #419). No cookies, no history, no nothing. uMatrix will also protect me for third party scripts and such. Maybe FPI, but if FPI = everything red for third-party in uMatrix, then I likely don’t need this (uMatrix already covers it) and it would likely break too many things. Having uMatrix defaulting to this behaviour and manually overriding some parts is more usable. But whatever, I will likely need Consider making Add-on settings container-specific #309 for that to work with what comes next.

• Then, ability to have “profiles” (i.e. containers from this extension) contexts to which I can switch (by opening a new tab associated with that profile). In a profile, cookies and history can be allowed (per-profile setting, so that is Disable history per-container setting #47, Disable history per-container setting #47, Allow per-container privacy settings #318), but should stay contained per website (that’s more an FPI things, so here container = FPI). For instance, I might want to have a “Personal” profile where I’m logged on every website I use for personal things, but I still don’t want those sites to see anything from the others. I would like to have multiple profiles for the following reasons: per-profile browsing history (e.g. my FLOSS history goes into my “FLOSS” container) to help me search things related to that context only, and because I might want to login into a website (e.g. Google ones) with different logins (perso, pro, etc.).

The main difficulty then from my point of view is allowing third party resources inside a given website container. If FPI works as I understand it, then this is mostly about “fixing FPI”. I think of recaptcha for instance. If I remember well, it needs cookies from www.google.com to be allowed if you don’t want to spend 1 minute for images recognition each time (I’ve lost enough of my time to Google because of this). To limit tracking, I would need one recaptcha cookie per website requiring it, and not one shared for every website in the corresponding profile. So the cookie should be added to the website container, not profile wide or for instance here in www.google.com container. Could that work with FPI/containers? Other example: some websites use a login domain (likely the case of Google for instance, but mainly the case of all CAS systems), or external authentication providers (which I don’t use, because that allows tracking by itself). I would then need the corresponding cookie or whatever to be added only in the used website container, neither the login domain (or external domain) one nor profile-wide.

To schematize it a bit:

• Default context → Nothing.
• Personal profile: personal browsing history.
  • My website.com → Login cookie Add readme #1. Cannot see Login cookie Add Acceptance Criteria #2, they are not even similar.
  • My nextcloud.website.com → Login cookie Add Acceptance Criteria #2. As above.
• Administrative profile: administrative browsing history.
  • Taxes website → openid.gov.tld cookie Add readme #1. Cannot see openid.gov.tld #0, Add Acceptance Criteria #2, even if they are likely very similar.
  • Driving license website → openid.gov.tld cookie Add Acceptance Criteria #2. As above.
  • Governmental OpenID website → openid.gov.tld cookie #0. Cannot bee seen by any other website. Cannot see openid.gov.tlp cookies Add readme #1, Add Acceptance Criteria #2.
• Professional profile: professionnal browsing history.
  • somewebsite.job.pro → CAS cookie Add readme #1.
  • otherwebsite.job.pro → CAS cookie Add Acceptance Criteria #2.
  • cas.job.pro → CAS cookie #0.
• Shopping profile: no browsing history.
  • Amazon → amazon cookie. Cannot see eBay cookie, etc.
  • eBay → eBay cookie. Cannot see Amazon cookie, etc.
• FLOSS profile: FLOSS browsing history.
  • Github → GitHub cookie. Same as above.
  • Gitlab → You got it by now.

Is such a workflow achievable, and what would be required in addition to already opened issues?

[groovecoder]

I think a few of these are already captured in other enhancement requests? Can you look thru existing issues and upvote them and/or comment on them?

[ArchangeGabriel]

I did already on most of them (btw I don’t remember what that #47 was supposed to be), but in this ticket I’m more interested in the global picture (it’s like a META in Bugzilla), even if that’s only to determine what missing brick would be required for this and open following issues to track them.

[groovecoder]

We have a pretty well-established UX for this particular add-on and the problems we're trying to solve with it.

For bigger global-picture Containers UX, we are encouraging add-on authors to create their own (~alternative) add-ons using the contextualIdentities API.

Re-labeling this as "good extra addon"

[uakfdotb]

@groovecoder I think this would not necessarily affect the UX. At least for me, making this add-on work when "Never remember history" is selected in preferences would be sufficient. That would mean cookies are isolated in the contexts, but features from "Never remember history" like not using the disk cache would still be enabled.

The original issue suggests per-container settings, but I think even this change, which doesn't introduce any new settings, would make the extension more useful for many users. At least it would fulfill my needs. Of course there may be a technical reason why this is difficult to implement (why doesn't it currently work with "Never remember history"?).

Relatedly: if I use "Custom settings for history", and uncheck "Remember my browsing/download/search/form history" but check "Clear history when Firefox closes", and also disable the disk cache from about:config, is this equivalent to "Never remember history", and can I use this extension in that way?

Unfortunately First Party Isolation doesn't work for me because I want to login to my Google account in one context, and use Google web search in another. Really this extension seems to give me exactly what I want, but I still want to keep using "Never remember history".

Edit: sorry, this issue is actually suggesting integrating FPI with this plugin. I misunderstood it the first time. I will post a new issue.

[benjamink]

I love these ideas (in the OP). Adding my vote for the described workflow.

[grahamperrin]

From opening post #1060 (comment)

• Default … permanent private mode …

This is a feature of Firefox (without Multi-Account Containers; private browsing and containers are separate).

… ability to have “profiles” (i.e. containers …

Profiles are a feature of Firefox.

---

Please consider the suggested workflow (and variations) at #469 (comment)

[grahamperrin]

From #1060 (comment)

… bigger global-picture Containers UX, …

💯 👍 to encouraging use of complementary extensions.

It is, and will be, impossible for a monolithic Mozilla extension to suit all use cases.