Use Different Firefox Profiles For Different Browsing Habits

One of the most under-looked features of Firefox is its ability to run different profiles. This is perfect for various reasons. If more than one person is using the same computer, each person can have a different profile where he can have his own customized Firefox setting - such as extensions or bookmarks.

Another reason to use different profiles is when using FireFox for different purposes. Obviously, most people don’t use every extension every time they use Firefox. However, the fact that the extension is installed makes Firefox startup and run slower than usual. The more extensions you run, the slower Firefox will run.

Use Firefox Profiles for different browsing habits

You can create Firefox profiles for the different browsing habits that you have. For example, if you are a web developer, you can have all extensions for that on one profile, without the unnecessary ones cluttering your Firefox. Likewise, if you want to browse without leaving any trace -”private browsing” - you can have a profile with the extension distrust or stealther and noscript.
For normal browsing, you can have another profile, and so on. This will keep your Firefox neat and fast - leaving only the necessary extensions and bookmarks for their respective purposes.

To use Firefox Profiles, follow these steps:
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1. Go to Start->Run and type:

Firefox -p

ffprofile.gif
2. Click on Create Profile and name it whatever you want (porn mode, work…)
3. Run each profile and set it up exactly how you want it - download the correct extensions and place the bookmarks that you need.

Place desktop shortcuts for each profile:

To create shortcuts for each Firefox profile, put a shortcut for Firefox on your desktop for each profile. So if you have 4 profiles, place 4 shortcuts to Firefox. Right click->Properties on each shortcut and go to the Shortcut tab. In the target field, it will be something like this:

“C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe”

Simply add -p name to the end where name is the name of the profile. So if the profile name is ‘private’ the Target field should look like this:

“C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe” -p private

ffprofile21.gif
Do this for every shortcut of Firefox.

Depending on how many extensions you normally use, this can speed up your firefox significantly (especially how long it takes it to start up) because the extensions are spread over more profiles. Also, it’s much less cluttered because you can spread bookmarks also.