This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Containers in Private mode

  • 7 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 169 views
  • Last reply by Izar

more options

It is my understanding that in Private browsing mode, tabs aren't isolated from each other and all tabs share the same (in memory) cookie jar and thus, for instance, existing third-party cookies are possibly sent in the same private session.

Why multi-account-containers addon is not avaliable in PB when it can be beneficial?

It is my understanding that in Private browsing mode, tabs aren't isolated from each other and all tabs share the same (in memory) cookie jar and thus, for instance, existing third-party cookies are possibly sent in the same private session. Why multi-account-containers addon is not avaliable in PB when it can be beneficial?

Chosen solution

Multi-Account Containers is still useful when you want to have multiple sessions on the same site, such as logging in to two Gmail accounts independently (those are first party cookies).

Read this answer in context 👍 1

All Replies (7)

more options

I don't know why Containers do not work in private windows. However, the purpose of private windows is to avoid writing data to disk, and it was not considered a general purpose browsing mode.

If you want to limit third party cookies in private windows, beyond blocking the tracking server cookies that are blocked in regular and private windows by default, you could switch to "Strict" mode Tracking Protection. As far as I know, this works everywhere in Firefox: See: https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2021/02/23/total-cookie-protection/

more options

Thank you, I was going to quote the same article.

So by having "strict" selected or using an even more strict setting like in the image attached, cross-site cookies are technically stopped? therefore multi-account-containers add-on no needed?

Cheers,

more options

Chosen Solution

Multi-Account Containers is still useful when you want to have multiple sessions on the same site, such as logging in to two Gmail accounts independently (those are first party cookies).

more options

Yes, you are right: "strict/custom" mode only isolates third party cookies. Still not sure why multi-account-containers is not available in Private browsing (PB) mode. It is 100% an excellent addition on top of PB. Is there a special place to suggest this?

more options

You could search in the bug tracking system to see whether there is a pending bug related to having container tabs in private windows:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/

See also: Bugzilla Etiquette

more options
more options

I ended up not using private browsing (PB) anymore and getting as close as possible to PB in the settings by deleting history and cookies at exit. Then, I opted for a add-on called Temporaty Containers which works fantastic in conjunction with containers!

I am also paying close attention to OpenWorlf project.

Modified by Izar