Forwarding this to dev-privacy as well, since there's a lot of relevance. ian
----- Forwarded Message ----- From: "M Stefan" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, July 2, 2013 3:11:18 PM Subject: [Feature suggestion] Lightweight profiles Hello, With the continuously rising issues of privacy and tracking, I believe it is important to be able to easily own multiple independent identities on the Web. Creating multiple gmail accounts takes a small amount of effort, but keeping them "untied" to each other is difficult. Google can easily figure out, based on your cookies, which other accounts you have signed into, allowing them to connect the accounts together. That is, all their tracking data can be merged together (search history etc.). It is not uncommon to desire to separate your "internet identity" from your "personal identity" and "work identity", therefore doing so should not be a difficult task. What I find interesting is the possibility of having multiple sets of cookies, cached data, stored passwords etc. on your browser. This is currently achieved through profiles, but this is a bit messy. Opening multiple profiles at once is troublesome, requires separate browsing windows and only allows at most one "remote" window. Typically, one opens the browser with -profilemanager -no-remote. Clicking external links does not allow picking which profile should the link be opened in (you have to open exactly one window without -no-remote). Would it be possible to implement lightweight profiles? They would work with different sets of cookies etc., but would run in the same browser instance (different tab group). Switching from "Gmail identity" to "Facebook identity" would only be a matter of switching between tab groups. Bonus points for being able to have "shared" as well as "private" cookies and passwords. Also for identity groups. Even more bonus points if you are forbidden from authenticating to a website using an account destined to other identity (preventing you from making mistakes, leaking your other identity to the first). Consider the following scenario: - I want to be logged in on YouTube at all times (to listen to music and favorite the songs that I like) - I do not want Google to know what sites I'm visiting (which he can track via analytics, adwords and then tie to the account I'm logged in as) Using lightweight profiles, I would simply have a separate YouTube identity. A more sophisticated set of identities would look like: Work -> Work email, Work browsing, Work LinkedIn Personal -> Facebook, Personal Gmail, Personal Browsing Internet -> Gaming Forum, Gaming Email, Pr0n Has this idea been implemented anywhere? Are there any plans to implement it? Is it too sophisticated to be considered? Privacy concerns are rising, and it appears the proper way to browse is with Adblock, NoScript and DoNotTrackMe. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this matter. Stefan _______________________________________________ dev-apps-firefox mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-apps-firefox _______________________________________________ dev-privacy mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-privacy
