A couple of weeks ago while flipping through tabs, I noticed a wee little fence on the top bar of my Firefox browser:
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My first thought was “hey that’s kinda a cute little emoji” … and then I wondered why it existed… and then I noticed it was in the upper right corner of my browser tab, too, right next to my AdBlockPlus icon … so I clicked it:
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Well, that was interesting! I can “trap” my Facebook identity into a tab and not be available across my whole browsing experience. No longer would Facebook notice that I was in another tab on Amazon looking for motorcycle helmets and getting swamped by helmet ads on my Facebook. This is a nice step forward!
AND THEN IT HIT ME! If it can fence in Facebook, it can fence in other identities! I have 5 different Microsoft identities (School, Police, Personal, Programming, other Programming) and in the past, I just used different browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Opera,) and Incognito windows to try to work and test things out in all of these different identities. It was a mess because I’d try to access a file or a setting but be the wrong person in that browser. But with Firefox’s containers, I can have one browser and each tab can be a different identity!
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How? CLICK & HOLD on the + New Tab button at the top of Firefox and choose MANAGE CONTAINERS
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The default has “Shopping” & “Banking” … I got rid of those and added my Microsoft Identities:
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Now, when I want to be at School, I click & hold the + New Tab at the top and choose Appleby, and everything in that tab works under my School Microsoft Office365 Identity. When I want to use my Programming Office365 (that I pay for), I choose OneNoteSchool — the OneDrive, Sharepoint, Outlook identity work perfectly! The identity that I’m using appears in the location bar so that I remember who I am. (I used to have to try to figure out who I was by looking at the profile pic in the upper right corner… but it was always me, so that wasn’t helpful).
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You could likely do the same thing if you had multiple Gmail, Facebook, Reddit identities, too!
Addendum: The Facebook Container also warns you if you’re in a “Facebook Free” tab that if you click on a link/button, you’ll be moving into a Facebook-tracking area — see the little red fence on the Facebook button? Now, nothing is foolproof when it comes to privacy on the internet… but a little step helps!
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[…] Fence me in! […]