Reviews for Temporary Containers
Temporary Containers by stoically
Review by Firefox user 13979250
Rated 5 out of 5
by Firefox user 13979250, 7 years agoI really like this add-on. It does something I've been searching for for ages. One suggestion I might make concerns the "Navigating in Tabs should open new Temporary Containers" option. It appears that setting that to something other than "Never" results in many websites that use redirects breaking, and requiring you to figure out the names of all the redirects and then putting the original website and the redirects all in the same permanent container with "Never", not set. This is a real pain, and a non-technical user probably wouldn't be able to figure out how to do it, so most people will likely set the global to "Never" in order to avoid the hassle, especially since you can't sync the settings across computers.
However, another side effect of having that set to "Never" appears to be that if you type a new URL into the tab yourself, the new site opens in the same temporary container. That seems to me to be more of an issue than allowing all the redirected sites to use the same temporary container by default, as the behavior the user is probably expecting is that each link they click on or each URL they type into the browser opens in a temporary container, but that stuff that's on the web page where they didn't manually click a link or type something else (e.g. redirects), would share the container. My suggestion here would be to either create a new option to allow the user to decide what to do if a new URL is manually typed into the command area of an existing temporary container, similar to the option given regarding the clicking of links, or simply assume that if the user types a new URL into the command area, that should be construed to be the same as left clicking a link and the same setting would govern both.
I think doing it that way would be a good compromise between maximum privacy and ease of use, as only the very technical and very paranoid would take the trouble to track down all the redirects and create permanent containers for every site with redirects that the non-Never setting breaks, and go through that exercise on every computer they use because the settings don't sync.
However, another side effect of having that set to "Never" appears to be that if you type a new URL into the tab yourself, the new site opens in the same temporary container. That seems to me to be more of an issue than allowing all the redirected sites to use the same temporary container by default, as the behavior the user is probably expecting is that each link they click on or each URL they type into the browser opens in a temporary container, but that stuff that's on the web page where they didn't manually click a link or type something else (e.g. redirects), would share the container. My suggestion here would be to either create a new option to allow the user to decide what to do if a new URL is manually typed into the command area of an existing temporary container, similar to the option given regarding the clicking of links, or simply assume that if the user types a new URL into the command area, that should be construed to be the same as left clicking a link and the same setting would govern both.
I think doing it that way would be a good compromise between maximum privacy and ease of use, as only the very technical and very paranoid would take the trouble to track down all the redirects and create permanent containers for every site with redirects that the non-Never setting breaks, and go through that exercise on every computer they use because the settings don't sync.
Developer response
posted 7 years agoGlad you like the Add-on. A better way to "unbreak Isolation" than just setting the whole "Source-Page" to "Never" is definitely needed and already on the list, you can follow progress here: https://github.com/stoically/temporary-containers/issues/104
It'll work by also giving a way to "exclude target Domains" from Isolation. In this case, if you type a new URL into the address bar it'll still get "isolated", unless it's one of the explicitly excluded Domains. Differentiating between an explicitly typed into the address bar navigation and a navigation triggered by click or from the tab itself is, afaik, unfortunately not that easy possible. Feel free to comment on the GitHub Issue if you feel the planned changes aren't enough or you have other ideas about how to solve this.
It'll work by also giving a way to "exclude target Domains" from Isolation. In this case, if you type a new URL into the address bar it'll still get "isolated", unless it's one of the explicitly excluded Domains. Differentiating between an explicitly typed into the address bar navigation and a navigation triggered by click or from the tab itself is, afaik, unfortunately not that easy possible. Feel free to comment on the GitHub Issue if you feel the planned changes aren't enough or you have other ideas about how to solve this.
280 reviews
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 17346999, a day agoThanks you so much for it. It worls very well.
Options ar a little complicated but once setup it's a dream. And ALT+i for some online payment - Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 14499003, 2 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Hollytryx, 6 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Andy, a month ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by adamhybel, a month agoTemporary Containers is a fundamental privacy enhancement for Firefox, automatically isolating your browsing activity to minimize tracking.
- Automatic Isolation: Opens websites, tabs, or clicks in new, disposable containers by default.
- Reduces Tracking: Significantly limits cross-site tracking by preventing cookies and site data from following you across different websites or sessions.
- Effortless Cleanup: Once the last tab in a temporary container is closed, the container and all its stored data (cookies, local storage) are automatically deleted, leaving minimal trace.
- Simple & Automatic: Installs and works seamlessly in the background. Excellent privacy protection right away with smart defaults, yet offers configuration for specific needs.
- Trustworthy & Open Source: Free, open-source, and dedicated to enhancing user privacy without compromises.
That's it! Keep it enabled for a significantly more private browsing experience. Temporary Containers provides a powerful layer of compartmentalization with virtually no user effort required. A huge thank you to the developer(s) for creating and maintaining this essential privacy tool. Highly recommend. - Rated 5 out of 5by Ricky, 2 months agoworks very well when i have auto fill info or when i just want to have history without persistent cookies
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 18885841, 3 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by elitesustenance, 4 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 13866866, 5 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Tempdirz, 6 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by firuz, 6 months ago
- Rated 4 out of 5by UsernameTaken017, 6 months agocan you please please please add a dark mode to the settings page? Thanks
- Rated 5 out of 5by djerius, 8 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 18609881, 8 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Ak, 9 months ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Tucker, a year agoWorks great! It'd be cool if there was a shortcut to convert temporary containers into permanent ones for when you create a new account that you want in a separate container.
- Rated 5 out of 5by drk001, a year ago
- Rated 3 out of 5by eriador, a year agoI love this addon and have been using it for 5 years now, but recently I noticed a weird issue: when I open a few links from my bookmarks in rapid succession, the tabs get stuck and I can't switch tabs anymore or do anything else. It doesn't happen when this addon is disabled.
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 18433470, a year agoFantastic add-in that I use daily for both personal and work-related needs.
- Rated 5 out of 5by geeknik, a year ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Durg, a year agoRest in peace @stoically. This is a wonderful piece of work. If any eager coders out there can lend a hand in forking this project, I and many others would greatly appreciate that. My use case is to set the isolation behaviour on middle click to "always" so you can continue browsing within a given container, while opening new tabs in new ones.
- Rated 5 out of 5by Benjie, a year ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Valentin Gatien-Baron, 2 years agoWorks great.
Due to "helpful" changes in firefox around the end of 2023, you may want to set `browser.link.force_default_user_context_id_for_external_opens` to true in about:config . Doing this ensures that links opened from other applications doesn't end up in some existing temporary containers. Details here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1874599 .