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Martin JS
Asked: 2018-08-28 22:41:23 +0800 CST

How can I launch portable firefox app as a separate application?

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I like to compartmentalize my internet browsing. I use one browser for work related stuff, one browser personal banking and bills, and another browser for general social related stuff like online forums and youtube.

Until now, I've simply used a combination of the Pre-installed Firefox, Chromium, and Waterfox. However, I much prefer to use the latest Firefox for all three. I am not interested in using different profiles for the one browser, as I like to have all three open at the same time.

EDIT: See Bruni's answer below. Three separate profiles is in fact the way to go, using the -no-remote function.

I recently used this script by Davide Airaghi to create 2 portable versions of firefox. I moved the two portable firefox folders to ~/firefox-work and ~/firefox-social. The pre-installed version is what I use for banking and other personal stuff.

I have all three running at the same time, and they work fine, however in my Plank launcher, they all show up under the same icon. Is there any way I can launch each of these portable firefox apps and the pre-installed app, and have them be shown in Plank as three separate applications?

scripts firefox launcher plank sh

1 Answers

  1. I am not interested in using different profiles for the one browser, as I like to have all three open at the same time.

    There is no reason not to use profiles for the above reason. If you invoke the profiles with -no-remote. E.g. I have a profile called Bruni. If I invoke it with

    firefox -P Bruni -no-remote

    I can also invoke another profile. You can use .desktop files to make your life easier.

    Never use -no-remote to start the "default" profile (the one that is set to open without asking when you launch Firefox). That's because when you launch Firefox, for example, by clicking a link in your mail program, you will get a "Firefox is already running but is not responding" message if the default profile is already in use. The solution is to always start the default profile normally and launch all others with -no-remote. Then it will work.

    http://kb.mozillazine.org/Opening_a_new_instance_of_your_Mozilla_application_with_another_profile

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