How to differentiate between different running Firefox instances?

I'm running several Firefox instances side by side on Ubuntu, each with a different user profile.

When each of them has several open windows I get a stack of sometimes two dozen windows, which is very difficult to choose from the specific instance I'd like to e.g. open a new tab in.

Is there an elegant way to differentiate between them? E.g. some about:config trick to add a prefix or suffix to the window title of all windows from a specific profile ? (i.e not a universal change for all instances in a resource shared by all profiles).

firefox

GJ.

Posted 2010-09-12T16:41:19.263

Reputation: 8 151

Have you figured out how to manipulate this directly, without the extension? The toolkit is not compatible with the current version of firefox. – Dale – 2014-07-10T19:35:03.490

Answers

The Firefox extension MR Tech Toolkit can, among many other options, replace the "Mozilla Firefox" text that is appended to the title bar to anything you like, which can also include the profile name.

Below is shown how to change it to the name of the profile ("default" in my case).

harrymc

Posted 2010-09-12T16:41:19.263

Reputation: 306 093

So sad that this toolkit hasn't been updated to work with the current version of Firefox :( – Dale – 2014-07-10T19:32:55.370

@Dale: You might try to install it from the home page, using the Download button.

– harrymc – 2014-07-10T19:48:34.540

even in the home page the extension is disappeared. Have to -1 this, sorry – Ooker – 2016-05-01T10:28:39.633

@Ooker: Don't you think that downvoting a 6-years old answer is a bit overdoing it? You don't have enough reputation to downvote all the deprecated answers on this forum. Updated to community wiki as protection. – harrymc – 2016-05-01T17:03:14.037

Yeah I think that it's overdoing, but I don't know what else to do. Also, as you said, does that mean that every answer that is deprecated should be converted to community wiki? – Ooker – 2016-05-02T10:05:14.577

@Ooker: Converting to community wiki is just my protection mechanism for old answers that attract downvotes - it disassociates me from the answer so my reputation is not affected by (up)downvotes. For you: It is enough to leave a warning comment informing readers that this answer doesn't work any more. For some answers it is useful to add the Windows version. Example : "This answer does not work on Windows 10 because ...". – harrymc – 2016-05-02T10:33:56.537

Thanks, I will remember this next time if I see a deprecated answer. Just for being curious, isn't that your rep is high enough to not care about the rep? – Ooker – 2016-05-02T14:05:41.103

@Ooker: I still try to take care of my old answers. – harrymc – 2016-05-02T14:08:38.360

thanks! do you have any idea where it makes this modification? I'd like to manipulate it directly, without an extension. – GJ. – 2010-09-12T20:04:12.583

Nope, but it's easy enough to find out: use the extension once to change title bar, see which Firefox file has been modified, save file, change again and compare to find where the change is done. – harrymc – 2010-09-12T20:28:36.190

There is an application called Show Profile by neo82 that worked for my purposes. Below is the screenshot of its preference panel.

image description

Dale

Posted 2010-09-12T16:41:19.263

Reputation: 413

This answer won't help you since I see you're running Linux, but the question itself is generic so I figured I'd offer an answer for any Windows Firefox users in a similar conundrum.

SysInternals Process Explorer is a useful tool that will show all running processes, and also has the handy ability to identify what process a window is associated with by clicking on it with a target cursor.

eXceLon

Posted 2010-09-12T16:41:19.263

Reputation: 51

the link doesn't work – Ooker – 2016-05-01T10:29:50.163