Disappointed from Mozilla’s changes in regard to handling profiles

Lounge
1

if I go and copy and backup the profiles of Chromium or Chrome or Vivaldi, or whatever browser
except for Mozilla ( including Thunderbird ),
I can transfer my profile to my next computer, and everything is fine.

Mozilla creates a new profile and ignores completely already existing profiles
if Mozilla or Thunderbird are being installed.

This is very annoying, and I clearly assume Mozilla wants to force users to signup to their
sync services.

My answer to this is, that I degraded Mozilla for the less important tasks in my workflow
and I am searching for alternatives to Thunderbird too. This is not a new story, this
politics was being implemented by Mozilla for some time already, just now I am fed up with this
and find time to let go of my anger.

So, Mozilla should be replaced, I say @!!?:-/!!

2 Likes
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I use Firefox and Thunderbird and I’m happy with both. :man_shrugging:

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@ricklinux so go ahead and transfer your profile to another computer without signing up for Mozilla sync, also I am not sure
if Thunderbird even offers a sync.

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I don’t typically do those things so it’s not an issue for me. I’m just generally satisfied with both Firefox as a browser and Thunderbird as an email client. I even use Thunderbird on my Windows installation.

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Mozilla creates a new profile and ignores completely already existing profiles
if Mozilla or Thunderbird are being installed.

Can’t you just copy the old profile files into the newly created folder?

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ok I am just saying, it is not problem if you set up an IMAP account, but it is a no go in case of a POP account.

Before I just copy the profile and everything goes. Chromium and Chrome and all other browser
do this, and it is simple to port your profile to an other computer.

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I’m not sure unless i tried it what the ramifications are. I use Thunderbird with the provider as opposed to using web based email login etc.

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I do this all the time with both those products and it works fine. There must something wrong in your process.

You just need to run firefox --ProfileManager and select the transferred profile. Thunderbird is the same.

6 Likes
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I don’t like Mozilla’s sync feature and deactivated my account. I just use the hardened profile.

Is Brave any better in terms of performance?

Any suggestions on alternatives? Just curious what everyone is using. I mainly use Firefox and Edge on windows.

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If you care about privacy the only real options are Firefox and it’s derivatives(TOR Browser, Librewolf, etc). If you don’t there are literally tons of alternatives. Vivaldi, Edge, Brave, Chromium, Chrome, etc, etc

3 Likes
11

This is a really nice thing to know. Thanks for that.

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@I0F in the past it was like that, but Mozilla changed that.

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I did it last week…when was it changed?

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I think he meant just the copying, not the --ProfileManager.

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Mozilla tends to protect existing profiles by creating new ones when in doubt, which imho isn’t necessarily a Bad Thing™️. There’s no Sorry after a data loss.

In my experience you usually only have - e.g. for with Firefox - copy your ~/.mozilla folder to migrate profiles. If the existing profile isn’t picked up go to about:profiles, set your default profile and you’re done.

2 Likes
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like a year ago, or even longer since, but I managed to copy things inside the newly created profile.

BUT still it is non sense , in the past I could just copy my “dot files”.

It is no problem with Chromium, Chrome, and any other app

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You don’t need to do that.

It is no problem with Firefox either…

1 Like
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it is, … like if you get a new computer

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Well, it isn’t for me. I literally do this all the time because I copy my Firefox testing profile into my new VMs.

You just copy ~/.mozilla/firefox to the new install and then run firefox --ProfileManager and pick the profile you want to use.

8 Likes
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OK but one could admit it is unnecessarily made more difficult as compared to the past, thanks anyway for this tip