Now whenever you double click that icon, the profile manager should appear, allowing you to choose which profile you'd like to use.
These instructions should be the same for all operating systems. Easily Run Multiple Firefox Instances on a Mac.
Use the following tutorial until someone can test and step-by-step on a mac directly. Close all instances of Firefox or restart the computer and then try again. If the Profile Manager window does not open, Firefox may have been running in the background, even though it was not visible. At the top of the Firefox window, click on the File menu and select Quit.If Firefox is already included in your Linux distribution or if you have installed Firefox with the package manager of your Linux distribution:
You can find more details at Profile Manager Starting Profile Manager in Windows Windows XP These instructions are tentatively going away in favor of a new profile manager. Note: On all operating systems, before you can start the Profile Manager, Firefox must be completely closed.
Nightly contains the latest code from Firefox developers and is the least stable channel.
Aurora contains experimental features, which are not yet at beta quality. The Beta channel contains the features that are expected to be in the next release of Firefox and are in final stages of testing. However, for those more adventurous, you can try one of the other three channels to see what is coming in Firefox and play around with emerging features. The Release channel is recommended for most users, as it is the "official release" channel. The four channels are Release, Beta, Aurora, and Nightly. There are four available browser channels, each at a different level of stability and development.
It takes some time to set up a new profile, but once it is complete, all of your Firefox versions will update separately and can be run simultanesouly. Creating new profiles for testing can keep you from losing your preferences, bookmarks, and history. You can remove such add-ons from your profile for Nightly use, while keeping them for use with other profiles.įor QA, testing, and bug triaging contributors, you may want to have multiple development versions of Firefox installed, each with its own profile. While using the Nightly channel, you may encounter some add-ons that have become temporarily incompatible with new API changes, until the add-on developer has a chance to update them. For example, you might want to have the Firebug add-on installed for Web development, but not for general-purpose Web browsing. Web developers might want a secondary profile for testing websites, apps, or other projects on different Firefox channels.
Having different profiles would allow each person to have his or her own set of bookmarks, settings, and add-ons. The casual user may want to have different profiles for different family members. You can find details about Profiles on Mozilla's end-user support site. A profile in Firefox is the collection of settings, customizations, and personalizations that a user has made in the program.