I wish they fixed the long standing, annoying sync bug that makes Firefox download 7000+ containers every once in a while. Some of us hosed our sync accounts in one way or another (through the container duplication bug in m-a-c itself [1] or the temporary containers extension [2]) and it's impossible to recover - once you reach the storage quota on the sync server, the sync server refuses all write operations and delete call apparently counts as a write.
it is possible to recover! you just have to reset your account password, which blows away all server data, starting the quota over. but this is ok because you should still have a local copy, and when you log in with the new password you can upload that.
Thanks! I have been following the issues and also spent quite some time trying to fix/work around this on the client side, but it never occurred to me that simply reseting the password deletes everything server-side. I'll try it out.
There's no obvious reason to grant the nativeMessaging permission during extension installation for an optional feature, nativeMessaging can be declared as an optional permission since Firefox 87 [1], and Firefox Multi-Account Containers 8.0.2 only supports Firefox 91 or newer.
There could be a bug related to declaring nativeMessaging as an optional permission, though that is not mentioned in the pull request [2], so this was probably an oversight.
EDIT: the minimum supported version was bumped to Firefox 91 in a subsequent PR apparently not for technical reasons, but just to follow guidelines [3], and then they forgot to reevaluate the need for the new default permission before a release.
I think this is a great step. I hate when Mozilla does things other than make their browser better. This seems like a feature pretty unique to Firefox (or if there is another implemention I'm not aware of, it's probably not as tightly integrated) that can make them money.
People can complain about the Mozilla VPN or Brave's BAT but at the end of the day they have to fund themselves somehow. I'd rather it to be through very interesting new ways of using a browser rather than through Google's money. Up until now I'd see the VPN as a lazy cash grab but now it seems like an actual premium feature.
I would really like Firefox to implement granular permissions per extension. So, if I can choose to not give this extension permission to talk to external programs. And hopefully the extension authors wrote it in a way that it degrades gracefully.
This permission is harmless because native messaging only allows an extension to communicate with a specific native companion program that has to be installed/enabled outside if firefox.
If you don't install the companion program, this permission won't do anything.
It does not allow the extension to run arbitrary programs.
It's just specified in a manifest file in a specific location on Linux or referenced in a registry key on windows, so sure, if you already have malware running on your computer I suppose it could do that (assuming the messages sent by the extension contain browsing data) but there would probably be easier ways for it to collect your data.
Bookmark access for the container extension is optional and there is a toggle button for it; for some reason, this one was added to the "Required permissions for core functionality" list which can not be modified.
I'm not sure if it's possible for this permission yet, but it did become possible for extensions to dynamically requests access to page contents per site, rather than declaring them all up front. It requires the extension authors to use a different API though, which not everyone has switched to yet.
The extension is direct from Mozilla. If I didn’t trust it to request literally any permission, I should just delete Firefox entirely because it could do just about anything without having to ask me.
The permissions being requested are things that all native apps get by default. I’m not worried about trusted code getting permission to something I trusted a hundred other apps with previously.
You don't really need this extension to use containers -- it just adds some convenience, but the main functionality (creating containers, opening tabs in containers, moving tabs between containers, ...) is in Firefox core.
There are also other convenience extensions that use containers -- like Simple Tab Groups, which allows creating groups and assigning them to containers. I use it and have no need for the "Multi-Account Containers" extension.
2. You'll need to enable these about:config flags to get the container options: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29347284#29348057. Also, removing the extension and then enabling those flags still reset my container settings to the defaults.
I use the site-to-container mappings, so I reinstalled the extension.
Annoying change. Saw it yesterday and did not dare to accept. Good it comes up on HN, I might have forgotten.
I have never looked into extensions. Could I just repackage it without requesting the additional privilege? Well, if the code called it unconditionally even if I don't really need it the extension would stop working.
I also saw it, and accepted, but the current version is 8.0.1 and its release notes say "Restoring previous version for some users who may have been accidentally updated prematurely 8.0.". So now I'm not sure what this means :/
Edit: aaah, now I have 8.0.2 and am a member of the club!
Should be possible, but not sure if the code calls it unconditionally. You can also take the old version of the source code and publish it yourself. Though possibly you can also just download and install that directly? https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers/releases...
I think the menu in your toolbar that allows you to open a new tab in a particular container (you then have to do it via a long press or right-click on the new tab button), to re-open a current tab in a different container, and this new container-specific VPN functionality.
Without the extension, you can't set a domain to always open in a particular container, at least I couldn't find a UI to do so. To me, that is a very important part of using containers.
You extension also lets you sort open tabs by container but that doesn't sound very useful.
I experienced the same thing. Without the extension but with these flags enabled, there's no way to bind certain hostnames to certain containers.
This is sort of documented in https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers#w_what-you-c... #5. That page covers it but doesn't clearly spell out that the itemized features are only possible with the extension. As far as I can tell, the extension is called "Multi-Account Containers" while the feature is called "containers" and readers are expected to know the difference when reading that doc. (Suggestion to Firefox docs maintainers: if that's correct, change all occurrences of "Multi-Account Containers" to "Multi-Account Containers Extension")
Oh, I had never discovered that feature... So I won't miss it yet. Need to think whether that makes it worth to use the extension again. For now I just enabled the manual configuration and have not noted any differences yet.
This is actually something I wanted, kinda. I like that they integrate the container proxy extension with the regular container extension, I just would rather they not try to sell the VPN thing so much.
It certainly sounds useful for users who need different VPNs / proxies in different tabs. But not everbody needs that, so not everbody should he forced to grant more privileges.
I don't need a VPN that often, so I have not investigated: Does it support any kind of VPN or just Firefox VPN?
I am super satisfied with the Containerise extension https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/containerise/) as alternative for Multi-Account Containers. It lets you map whole classes of domains to unique containers, which is an awesome and robust solution for logins involving a lot of redirects. Here are some example mappings which also catch all real subdomains (but not "fakeamazon.com"):
I see - once again, instead of just letting people fund the damn browser, Mozilla is continuing with its tried-and-true strategy of randomly integrating things into other things.
It has been confirmed that none of the donated money (Mozilla Foundation) goes to Firefox development (Mozilla Corporation). You hear the comment often because it is true.
There's no option to donate to a specific project, though. As much as I'd like to support Firefox, I do not want to support any other shiny projects that they'll kiff of in a year or two.
Not at all related to this but posting for visibility.
Firefox never updates automatically for me and I've uninstalled, removed my account and other basic troubleshooting steps I've found through Googling never help.
I have to run the installer with every update. And that would be fine but it resets some settings that don't sync with your profile, as an example, it always changes language spell check back to US English from British or Australian English. Its giving me the shits.
[1] https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers/issues/1...
[2] https://github.com/stoically/temporary-containers/issues/371