Need to run two separate Firefox application and different privacy settings

[Asvin]

I am a true fan of Firefox web browser. Recently I downloaded and installed Firefox version 12 which is running smoothly without any issue until now. The best thing is that I have set this browser the way I wanted and it never caused any problem. However I personally feel that with this browser my obscurity is very much protected. From past few days I am trying to research on different privacy settings, I need to have different privacy settings in the browser along with two different versions of Firefox. I have a laptop running Mac, so therefore I am supposed to do this with this laptop and also I am not going to have an external drive that is available and also I do want my hard drive to have any kind of partition. Can anyone present over here help me out with this doubt. I just wanted to know that whether there is any way of running two versions of Firefox and then have different privacy settings and different add ons.

[Rhesa]

Can you be clear with your needs? What exactly you want to do? As from my point of view what I can understand is that you need to have one firefox profile that could provide you with some tight and strong privacy settings and rest all with least possible settings, am I right? If this is what you are looking out for then there is good news for you. Fortunately you can do this thing in a much simpler manner. What I would suggest you to read out the Managing Profiles, with the help of this Managing profiles you can simply learn the steps and procedure for creating a new profile. But other than this you will have to see to it that you definitely uncheck the box “don't ask a Startup” so that you can easily switch between the profiles each and every time you try to open the firefox browser.

[Suigetsu]

Yeah you have taken it right but partially wrong. I am not sure what you were trying to explain but I think you got thing with the privacy settings right but not the application. What I have mentioned in my post is that I need to have two different and separate firefox applications running at the same time but both of them having again two different privacy settings. Its not that I need to run one with a tight privacy settings and another with a loose privacy settings as you have mentioned in your post. I want both of them with equal privacy settings enabled and running successfully without any problem of ups and downs. Please help me out with this doubt; once I am done with this I will be really happy. Also I would like to know about the hot key, I need to ask whether there is any way to hot key between the two profiles that I am going to create in future. I am really expecting the answer with a positive reply, if I am able to hot key between the two profiles then I would be really great for me because after that I will easily able to bounce in and out depending upon the activity I am performing, it would be much similar to opening two different browsers like Safari and Firefox at the same time at the same place at the same machine.

[Chopfyt]

I didn’t get you completely I guess, bit confused with the versions. Anyways look if you are willing to run the same firefox version that you are having with you i.e. 12 or two completely different firefox versions with completely different settings then I guess you will have to get two separate firefox profiles for each one of them. you can create a desktop shortcut with –P Profile adding up to the target for launching each firefox version with their own profile. For more information you need to check out on web, I think you can get further more information on MozillaZine KB articles. At last I would like to tell that use a no remote command line switch in order to open up the other firefox instance with the help of its own profile if you are however willing to run a different firefox versions at the same time and same moment.

[Cauvery]

You can create a new profile quite easily. If you are not aware of the steps then you need not have to worry I will help you out the best way possible. Hope you know about the Profile Manager, now once if you get the complete access to the Profile Manager you need to click on “Create Profile”. And if you are a Mozilla Suite or SeaMonkey user then I think you will have to first click on “Manage Profiles”. Anyways now in both the case the user has to enter the descriptive name of their new profile ad then click on Finish button. Before you try to start with the selected profile if you want your Profile Manager to appear all the time whenever you open the program simply uncheck the option called “Don't ask at startup”, if you don’t do that remember that the selected profile will automatically start each and every time. Now without you knowledge a new profile folder will be somehow created in that default folder location. Just because your old profile was corrupted or gone bad if you have created a new one then the good thing is that now you can import the bookmarks and also do a selective transfer of all your other data to new one which you have created. Remember that if you use a ZoneAlaram Extreme security or ZoneAlarm ForceField then the Browser security option that is need to run the browser in the virtualization mode can simply help your new firefox profiles not being saved once if selected. Make sure to turn off the virtual browsing feature if and only if you have used one of the up listed ZoneAlaram products.

[Deverell]

At this point of stage with this type of doubts and issue it is very much needed for you to first know about creating a new profile as already shown to you in the above posts; and secondly you need to know about managing and handling multiple created profiles. As you have already stated about you wish of having two different firefox browsers with two different profile, it is recommended to also learn about managing those profiles.

You can simply select your desired profile once if you have created multiple firefox profiles by just unchecking the Profile Manager option called as “Don’t ask at the Startup” when you start Firefox. Once you uncheck that option from then onwards you will be able to start the Profile Manager whenever you start Firefox. You can also use a Firefox shortcut or a command line argument in order start up the Firefox application with the help of a specific profile that you have created without even going through the Profile Manager. If you check the option of Profile Manager i.e. "Don't ask at startup" while starting Firefox and selecting the profile remember that the selected profile will somehow become the default profile for your browser and also it will be used automatically every time starting Firefox unless and until a shortcut or a command line argument is used to start up with the specific profile.

[Beatricef]

Its not that you can only create a profile, if you are not aware let me tell you that you can also move a profile and also you can delete any existing one from the list of created profiles.

For removing the profile you need to use the profile manager option as usual but this time you need to use the option “Delete Profile “ for the removal of a profile. Not just the simple ones you can also delete the associated profile folder and also its contents along with it. this is possible only if you have selected the option “Delete Files” but remember that it is most recommended that you surely choose the option “Don’t Delete Files” unless and until you are confident and sure that the profile folder contains no such important data or information.

Other than a normal profile you can also delete a Firefox Thunderbird or a SeaMonkey 2 profile but you have be aware while deleting such profile because the profile that I have mentioned may contains some non Mozilla files, only if you have created the profile with the help of the customized procedure and in a custom location. You may lose those important non-mozilla files so therefore be aware while performing the delete activity. If you use the option for deleting that profile i.e. “Delete Files” you are bound to delete and loose all the contents of that folder along with the folder including all the non-mozilla files that I have already mentioned above. You cannot help yourself in saving those files and contents and therefore just for this reason you are recommended to choose the option “Don’t delete files” while you perform a Profile deletion. You can perform a manual activity if you are really willing to delete the profile folder.

[DamarisK]

I do not have any idea how exactly it worked for me, creating a new profile actually did worked for me. I followed exactly what was suggested here. Now I have a default and a research profile which works well and fine for me without creating any extra additional issue. Anyways next I need to do is to work out on having two different version of Firefox running at the same time and each one having their own profile. Sounds quite difficult but after checking out this thread seems like it would be fun doing so. I simply used the command C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -P "My Profile" -no-remote with some obvious changes, because I my system is running on Mac and not on windows. But unfortunately nothing worked, each time I tried to do something some of the other thing happened. Therefore I simply installed Firefox version 11 after renaming Firefox to Firefox 1. I renamed Firefox 11 after when it got loaded; in the application I simply renamed it to ff-p. however after trying to open both Firefox 11 and 12 version ended up giving me a default profile so therefore I have to go back and then uncheck at the start up. After doing so I was easily able to open up the last installed version 12 with the default profile without any problem. I managed to open the version 11 along with the research profile as mentioned above and guess what? It opened as expected and without even showing any such behavior of having other Firefox installed in my machine. So therefore at the end I tried to take a risk and then updated the version to 12 for some security purpose. Rebooted the machine and everything went like an ease. It was quite difficult for me do implement what was suggested to me because the suggestion were made considering windows and I have a Mac system. But now fortunately I am able to open and use both the different version Firefox browser and then have a different profile associated with both of them, didn’t experiment a lot so therefore I cant comment of say anything more than this, expecting to do whatever I was willing to do.