CyberNotes: Creating A "Sandbox" To Test Firefox Extensions
Web Browser Wednesday
I am probably testing a new Firefox extension everyday but I hardly keep any of them. As of right now I consistently use 9 extensions but they each save me so much time that I am always on the lookout for some more great ones. I’ll never be able to find any if I don’t give them a try which is why I have an easy way to test Firefox extensions without putting your current profile at risk.
It is easy to uninstall an extension so what is the big deal about trying it out on your normal profile to see if you like it? Well, there isn’t anything wrong with it except that many extensions will write settings to your Firefox profile and when you uninstall the extension it doesn’t delete the settings in case you decide to reinstall it later. So, much like the Windows Registry, your Firefox profile will start to become bloated.
For awhile I just had a Firefox Portable installation that I would use for testing any new extensions but then I decided to create a completely separate profile that used my normal Firefox installation. When I was setting that up I stumbled upon a Profile Manager that Firefox has to select between multiple profiles.
Note: In the screenshots below it says “Bon Echo” instead of Firefox because I am using a test version of Firefox.
To use the Profile Manager you can open up the Run command from the Start Menu and type firefox.exe -ProfileManager into the box. The simpler way in my opinion is to duplicate your existing Firefox shortcut and change it to include that parameter:
If you don’t put that parameter on the end then it will always use your default profile and will never prompt you to select which profile you want to use. That is why I said duplicate your existing shortcut because you will primarily be using your default profile so there is no sense in have the Profile Manager pop-up each time. I just put the Profile Manager shortcut in my Accessories folder so that I don’t get it confused with the other one.
Once you do run the new shortcut then you will receive a screen like this:
You will probably only have one profile to start off with whereas I have already created a profile for testing as well. To create a new profile you just have to select the respective button and you should eventually receive this screen:
After you create an additional profile you are all set to beat it up and test away. It is also useful in case you want to determine why you are having a problem with your current profile by being able to start fresh and still have the option to return to your old profile.
If you are looking for more information on managing Firefox profiles you will probably find Mozilla’s help page to be quite useful. They show you where your profiles can be located on all of the operating systems except Windows Vista. If you’re wondering where you can find the profile in Vista just look at the details in the previous screenshot that I took because it shows where the profile was going to be created.
Let us know if you have any other cool profile tricks!
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Tags: CyberNotes, Firefox, Software
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This is a good way to test two different versions of Firefox as well.
Inspired by your praise of the recent “Minefield” branch offering I decided to give it a go using almost exactly the same technique you posted here:
[grandstreamdreams.blogspot.com]
I’ve been very pleased with the page rendering and image processing in this pre-alpha “Minefield” trunk release. It has been remarkably stable and issue free.
Thanks for the work. Your site is one of my top-10 tech sites to watch daily!
I fixed the link in your post so I deleted your last comment.
We’re definitely glad to hear that we are one of your top-10 tech sites that you watch and hopefully we will just keep growing!
you can actually just do “firefox.exe -p” and it does the same thing.
I guess I learn something new everyday! Thanks!
Heck, I can even do simply “firefox -p”
I would say that this is probably the smallest you can get without just creating a single letter batch file.
So Ryan…What are your 9 extensions that you use???
Well, they aren’t anything amazingly unusual but I’ll share anyways. Hmmm…that gave me an idea of something to look into as well.
My can’t live without extensions:
GMarks! — Definitely my #1
Download Statusbar
Google Notebook
Tiny Menu
Ones that I installed within the last few weeks to see how useful they will be and to monitor for memory leaks:
CustomizeGoogle
Greasemonkey
IE Tab
Cooliris Previews
Opera FastForward and Rewind Buttons
I really like Download Statusbar, especially when I use it with the PDF Download Extension which I use with Foxit Reader. I love being able to easily delete the PDF file when I am done with it. Greasemonkey (and now works with FF 2) is awesome, for those of us who use [forums.delphiforums.com], their WYSIWYG Editor would not support Firefox so, the [forums.delphiforums.com] forum hostess using Greasemonkey created a WYSIWYG Editor we could use with Firefox. She also wrote a couple of other scripts as well for use within Delphi Forums.
Have you used the CustomizeGoogle much? What are your thoughts about it?
I’ve used it mainly to remove the ads from the search results. It has some other features such as accessing a secure server for the calendar and GMail (should that already be on a secure server).
I think that CustomizeGoogle does have some nice features but I’m currently wrestling with the idea of whether I need them. Sure many people love to get rid of the ads but they don’t really bother me because they are so unobtrusive. In reality it is a bunch of Greasemonkey scripts all tied up into one application.
I tried CustomizeGoogle, but decided that I do not need it. I am using DownloadStatusbar and am loving it. Thanks Ryan.
However, I first used it this morning after installing it yesterday. The very first download had me wondering where the hell the download dialog box was and I thought the download was not happening. I finally noticed the bar at the bottom of the browser. DOH!
After I downloaded the Download Statusbar that is exactly what happened to me as well. I noticed myself clicking on download links multiple times to figure out why I could never get the download started…by that time I had 5 different copies downloaded.
It is something you definitely have to get used to but I think the download manager is something Mozilla needs to work on in Firefox. I particularly like Opera’s which opens in a new tab because it is nicely laid out and offers a lot of information, but at the same time I like the condensed view that Download Statusbar offers for Firefox.
Odd, I use to get the download manager to open in a new tab…may be…I think I had the download manager tweak extension doing that. I do think that one broke Bon Echo though so I ditched it.
Yeah, it was the Download Manager Tweak that lets you open your downloads in a new tab but I don’t think they have updated it to work with Firefox 2. The extension did help but I think Opera’s still provides more information.
You talk a lot about Opera. Do you like it that much?
Do you use it more or less than Firefox?
I use Firefox a little more mostly because of my Google Bookmarks but I would say that I use Opera 30% of the time. Yes, it is really that nice. Everything just works without the need to download any extensions.