Something like Firefox Containers in Vivaldi?

Arafel

I'm looking for a reliable way to isolate my sessions involving Google, Microsoft and social media accounts from the rest of my browser.

The Firefox Containers extensions does exactly that; however, even after a lot of research I couldn't find anything similar for Vivaldi (or any Chromium-based browser really)...

Specifically: I want to be able to open a tab, so that all and any cookie and tracker generated there stays within; for example, have a YouTube tab where I'm logged in with a Google account, without my other tabs in Vivaldi knowing that I'm logged in to Google.

I just tried the only Chrome extension "alternative" I heard of (on Reddit), Cookie Profile Switcher, and I found that it not only is terrible at doing what it advertises it should do, but also that after 5 minutes of browsing all profiles created had disapeared — what's more, it works on a tab per tab basis, so you can't have a, say, "Google logged in" profile along with a "not logged to Google" profile between which you could switch for any new tab...

I think this feature is super important for preserving privacy online and getting a little piece of mind...

So, does anyone know of an alternative for Vivaldi?

PS: I'm not even remotely close to considering switching back from Vivaldi to Firefox, so please don't suggest that

DoctorG

@Arafel said in Something like Firefox Containers in Vivaldi?:

So, does anyone know of an alternative for Vivaldi?

Solution in Vivaldi: for each "Container" you want, create a different profile by clicking on avatar in address bar.

Arafel

@DoctorG said in Something like Firefox Containers in Vivaldi?:

Solution in Vivaldi: for each "Container" you want, create a different profile by clicking on avatar in address bar.

I'm afraid that's not what I'm looking for.

This "several profiles in several windows" option is a feature present in most browsers. One of the key strengths of Vivaldi (as far as I'm concerned) is its ability to fit everything in the same window — thanks to tab stacks and workspaces. I used to need (a lot of) virtual desktops to access all my opened windows with my previous browser, and now that I have Vivaldi (with the features I just mentioned), the last thing I want is going back to needing additional windows for my standard browsing.
If, though, there is a way to use several profiles in a single window, then please share how it's done!

Thanks for sharing this idea anyway; however, I hope some other users can provide solutions closer to the Container feature.

mib2berlin

@Arafel
Hi, there is no solution in Vivaldi.
There is a old feature request with many user votes but I guess it is out of the scope of the Vivaldi developers.
Some of the comments mention extensions can do this, like SessionBox but I don't know if they work in Vivaldi.

https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/25289/multi-account-containers

Cheers, mib

Arafel

@mib2berlin Thank you very much. I'm investigating this extension right now.

rdhar

Following the same thread with the same request for a Firefox-like Container integration and found 2 popular alternatives:

Haven't used either one enough to make a judgement... yet.

Arafel

@rdhar From my latest tests:

SessionBox works well but it is a little cumbersome — mainly because you need to re-open the tabs after each browser restart, and because there's no simple way (I'm not sure, I'm asking support if this is indeed the case) to open a new tab inside the session "box" — but it does work and that's good enough (for me);
Cookie Profile Switcher is — sorry for them — junk, it is horrible to work with and it seems there's no memory whatsoever of what you did when you restart Vivaldi.

If I'm wrong about any of these two, please tell me! That's just half a day of testing and I might have missed some things, even maybe some major things.

yngve

FYI, Chromium's (and Vivaldi's) cookie and data storage is centered around the profile, and the profile is associated with at least one application Window, and an application Window can only be associated with one, and only one, profile. All tabs in that Window, and tabs in any other Window associated with that profile, are using the same cookie storage.

That is why both the Guest Profile Windows and the Private Window open in separate Windows.

Additionally, even assuming code could (or was) modified to support multiple profiles (or cookie stores) in a Window, that might cause a bit of confusion, especially if the user expects to be able to log in to one website with credentials from a second site. There are quite a few ways that such isolation can go wrong (and probably broken, too).

I'll note that Vivaldi does support a recent standard called "Partitioned cookies", where cookies from a third-party site is only associated with the site referencing them. However, this is something the third-party site have to specifically tell the client, or it will be treated as a normal third-party cookie.

rziiil

@yngve Sidekick is a Chromium based browser that also has the container-tab concept from Firefox, although now it is a paid feature of the pro version.

Profile-level separation is exceedingly cumbersome because users do not want to lose their bookmarks, sidebars, extensions, and other profile related data. We don't even want to go between multiple windows.

The common use cases I have seen are:

Developers needing to demo or test multiple personas at once
Consultants working for multiple clients where said clients have cloud platform providers in common (Office365, AWS, Github, ...)
Employees going through post-merger integration, where old and new companies are still in different tenants of cloud platform provider.

In all cases there is a need for the persistence that a private window does not provide, and the convenience of one profile and window.

Firefox is winning back some of this audience, and Sidekick is (presumably) profiting from them too.

zakius

@yngve it certainly can be modified, the question would be is it feasible
unfortunately Chromium is just not suited as a base for a good browser and upstream issues blocking or making basic features extremely hard to implement is a recurring pattern

as @rziiil mentioned, profiles separate too many things, user would have to keep multiple profiles in sync regarding bookmarks, history, passwords, other autofill data, extensions and their settings, these are useful but that's just a different scope

Edmarcio

@yngve I did not see your reply before... sorry to tag you again.
Maybe it is just too much work to make it works...

But the feeling as user is that it is very possible because if you look at Arc it does exactly that... when you create a new profile and attach to a Space in the data folder you can see a new Profile 1 folder created with all the Chromium files... so each new profile create a new Profile N folder to manage it.

I took some pics myself.

This is the Arc data folder: https://i.ibb.co/sj7h9Z6/image-2024-08-26-154538664.png

This inside one of the Profile N folder: https://i.ibb.co/19b3dyh/image-2024-08-26-154807274.png

I was trying to do some research in the Chromium source code and I spotted some functions that needs Profile as parameter to open new tabs... of course that is an newbie looking at the code lol

But I hope in the future more browsers start to use multiple profiles in the same window at least via Workspace (via tabs like Firefox is too confusing to the end-user and lead to mistakes).

Thanks again by the reply.

yngve

@Edmarcio said in Something like Firefox Containers in Vivaldi?:

d I spotted some functions that needs Profile as parameter to open new tabs

Yes, but the tab is opened in a Window, and the profile identifier (aka pointer) is retrieved by/from that Window's data. It cannot be set arbitrarily.

It is passed in overtly (and not as part of the window data) at that stage because it will be used in so many places inside the Tab code that it is more efficient to "inform" the tab about the profile it is using at that point, than to recover it from the Window whenever it is needed.

Hypothetically, one can imagine creating multiple profiles inside a window, such as for workspaces (as some has suggested elsewhere), but even that would be to invite confusion. The reason is simple: Tabs can be moved from one workspace (including the main workspace) to another workspace. That would mean that one could have two different accounts on the same site next to each other in a workspace. (And if those accounts are supposed to not appear related to each other, e.g. due to one being used to access sensitive information, it would be very easy to leak information from one to the other, thus outing the associating to those interested.)

It is much less confusing (and less error/leak prone) to create separate profiles, which already uses different windows, to organize different accounts on the same site. I am actually using several standalone installs for certain projects, two of which are hosted in the same account management system. An additional benefit of standalone installs is that they are actually separate locations on the taskbar.

Edmarcio

@yngve I understand your points.

It just that two separate windows is like using multiple browsers... there is no difference at all... I just don't see doing it.
And I have a guess that people will end using another browser like Edge on Window than use different profiles windows with Vivaldi.... that doesn't make Vivaldi shine over others browsers imo.

Everything in a single app/windows is the ideal for me.
I don't like Private being a separately windows too... that is why I rarely use it... it should be a more useful if you could create Private Tabs instead Window.

I think the way Chromium choose to follow these is really not optimal to end user imo... and browser with Workspaces needs to review what they are doing because Workspaces without sessions will lead to users choosing to open another browser in parallel instead to use Workspaces.

PS. About the move tabs between Workspace with different profiles it is simple... after move the page should be reloaded to use the profile of the new Workspace... if you moved it from one Workspace to another you know and expect the pages to load with another profile so the content needs to be reloaded to use the data of the new profile and not keep the old data... when you do that the own site will deal with the different cookies and stuffs... so it is not leak of information.

What can't happen is to continue linking the moved tab to the old profile... you can't use the cached data of the previous profile... you need to reload the whole site every single time you move the tab between profiles to cache data with the new profile.

iamstonecutter

@DoctorG said in Something like Firefox Containers in Vivaldi?:

@Arafel said in Something like Firefox Containers in Vivaldi?:

So, does anyone know of an alternative for Vivaldi?

Solution in Vivaldi: for each "Container" you want, create a different profile by clicking on avatar in address bar.

This isn't a solution—it's the same response I received when I made a similar request in the past. Many of us want the ability to log in to separate accounts within the same browser session. Without this feature, workspaces are entirely useless, in my opinion.

For instance, if I have one workspace for personal use and another for business, why can't I sign in to separate accounts on services like Gmail or Reddit? This limitation is very disappointing.

iamstonecutter

@mib2berlin said in Something like Firefox Containers in Vivaldi?:

@Arafel
Hi, there is no solution in Vivaldi.
There is a old feature request with many user votes but I guess it is out of the scope of the Vivaldi developers.
Some of the comments mention extensions can do this, like SessionBox but I don't know if they work in Vivaldi.

https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/25289/multi-account-containers

Cheers, mib

I don't know if I buy the “out of the scope of Vivaldi developers” angle on this, and I'll tell you why.

Floorp, often referred to as the Vivaldi of Firefox, is developed by a single developer who managed to implement workspaces even before upstream Firefox would entertain the possibility of such a feature. It's impressive that one person could innovate like this, potentially inspiring features in Firefox Nightly, such as the sidebar. Meanwhile, Vivaldi—a larger project with a whole team of developers—has yet to implement even basic features like isolating cookies between workspaces, let alone creating full-fledged containers. This lack of progress is disappointing and could be a dealbreaker for many users, including myself.

mib2berlin

@iamstonecutter
Hi, I know Floorp and it is interesting but if the developer lost interest it will die as many other forks of Firefox and Chromium in the last decade.
With "out if scope" I meant the Vivaldi team doesn't fork Chromium, they leave the source as is except ungoogle it here and there.
I am sorry to say this but it will not happen in Vivaldi except the Chromium developer implement it.

Cheers, mib

iamstonecutter

@mib2berlin said in Something like Firefox Containers in Vivaldi?:

@iamstonecutter
Hi, I know Floorp and it is interesting but if the developer lost interest it will die as many other forks of Firefox and Chromium in the last decade.
With "out if scope" I meant the Vivaldi team doesn't fork Chromium, they leave the source as is except ungoogle it here and there.
I am sorry to say this but it will not happen in Vivaldi except the Chromium developer implement it.

Cheers, mib

I agree that Floorp probably won't last because Firefox is slowly adding the features that make Floorp unique to it's Nightly releases, which will ultimately end up as a part of Firefox.

And yes, you're equally correct that Vivaldi likely won't ever make isolated cookies a reality. I just find it unfortunate because Vivaldi is an amazingly beautiful browser and very enjoyable to use, but for production use in a business setting, not so much because of this specific limitation. Such a shame.

Cheers mate.

Edmarcio

@mib2berlin said in Something like Firefox Containers in Vivaldi?:

With "out if scope" I meant the Vivaldi team doesn't fork Chromium, they leave the source as is except ungoogle it here and there.

Every Chromium based browser do that, no? Edge, Arc, Brave, Opera, etc. You customize over the Chromium code... and update that Chromium code each new version released.

And to be fair I believe Vivaldi is the one that most customized it... they don't use the native Chromium UI like the others and do their own UI with HTML/CSS/JS.

The others browsers uses the native Chromium UI and just design themes over it.

mib2berlin

@Edmarcio said in Something like Firefox Containers in Vivaldi?:

Every Chromium based browser do that, no? Edge, Arc, Brave, Opera, etc.

They all do, Vivaldi does not.
For example, Chromium developer removed the code for "Send to Device", the Edge developer put it back and have to maintain it for every Chromium update.
The Vivaldi team leave it removed.

Anyway, I just wanted to give more information why the feature in Vivaldi won't come.

Cheers, mib

Edmarcio

@mib2berlin

I’m a bit confuse yet.

Vivaldi has several custom features that have to be maintained every Chromium update too… I don’t see any difference at all.

It can be a simplicity view but I see the development in web browsers separately in2 big blocks:

Base Chromium code.
Vendor customized code.

Every time the base Chromium code is updated you need to re merge the Vendor customized code again and fix the issues that come from that.

There is a big article from one of the Vivaldi founders explaining exactly that.

And I think that is the same for all vendors.
Edge putting back “Send to device” just mean Chromium removed the code from their base code and MS used the code now in their Vendor customized code.

At the end it is the same for any customized feature Vivaldi have… of course some customized code features are hard to re merge in the new Chromium update than others like it can break things but that is part of the job of a developer.

Edit - I found the article.

https://vivaldi.com/blog/lets-go-under-the-browser-hood-with-vivaldis-yngve/

Like he said except if you are shipping the base Chromium features (that Vivaldi is not and neither any big vendor) you have to to patch Chromium base code with your merged customized code every new release… that is the base of web browsers forked from Chromium (and it is probably the same for the forked from Firefox).

There is not way to avoid that if you add features to your browser like Vivaldi, Edge, Opera, Brave, Arc, etc do it.