Yep, and that alone is enough for it to be too much a PITA to the average user. Modify a shortcut? Oh you mean all of them? Oh the Start Menu is customizable? Well I'm on a Mac. Well sometimes it doesn't work... wait what do you mean other programs can have opened Firefox and I have to reopen it with the right profile? I'm in the other profile now but the wrong stuff is there! (they didn't manually customize the secondary profile to be visually distinct). "just start with the -p flag" avoids the user accessibility issue with the technical answer repeated.
These are obviously answered problems for anyone on HN but not obvious problems for the majority of users that have never even installed an extension (even an adblocker). Chrome avoids all of these by automatically managing the shortcuts (clearly named), providing clear in-browser always visible UI about multiple profiles (also clearly marked), and explaining to the user how to make/manage them in app.
This is before getting into problems Chrome shares with Firefox like not syncing local profiles or issues with the way things work on Android.
I didn't know chrome offer multiple profiles. I wouldn't even know how to use them. Do you mean signing in with different google accounts?
For firefox, you would type it in the run box under windows from the start menu.
Whatever plugins or bookmarks or changes to the toolbar will help me tell this isn't my profile. If I haven't customized why would I care this isn't my profile.
> I didn't know chrome offer multiple profiles. I wouldn't even know how to use them. Do you mean signing in with different google accounts?
It can be a Google account or it can be a local account, both are treated the same.
> For firefox, you would type it in the run box under windows from the start menu.
In Chrome you don't have to know to leave the browser and run a magic command, you just click the profile icon built right in the browser. When you do it has stuff for managing the current profile as well as adding new profiles. If you add a new profile you can switch right from the browser window. It also creates the separate shortcuts to launch straight to the profile on the desktop and names them based on the profile. Part of creating a profile is it gets a unique theme automatically (or you can pick one of course), it's not something the user has to think ahead about or implement manually. This is all pointed out on the initial out of the box experience walkthrough as well as by in browser tooltips and descriptions. It'll also default to the profile selection window on a generic launch (e.g. another app triggers a page load) rather than require you follow any of these special shortcuts manually.
> Whatever plugins or bookmarks or changes to the toolbar will help me tell this isn't my profile. If I haven't customized why would I care this isn't my profile.
Remember most people don't use plugins, on top of the whole "you don't need to do anything for the profile to differentiate itself" difference. The bookmarks bar is also off by default. And even if there are minor differences it's a backwards way of telling which profile a window is in - the window should tell me the profile obviously, not just my memory of the settings for a profile and matching them to a Window. Worth noting profiles are also differentiated with the user profile picture in the taskbar button overlays and any shortcut icons automatically so this integration extends even outside of the browser window without effort of the user.
> If I am an average user am I using this feature?
I'd say most by percentage aren't. The most common use cases are kids with personal and school Google accounts or adults with personal and work Google accounts but even then it won't be every user. The number of multi-profile users on Chrome as a percentage of user population is significantly higher than on Firefox because of all of the above though.
I love Firefox to death but the profile UI is absolute garbage which is just crazy considering they are the ones that made all of the excellent UI around containers.
I share your... Whatever feeling this is. How can you have a feature and not make it accessible. Not even by internal customization, you have to go out there and install an extension "who is not monitored by Mozilla and could present a security issue". This is beyond me. In the meantime I am bracing myself for the next UI total redesign that will make sure no user can ever get used to using Firefox while disappearing features.
Logging into an account to change profiles sounds more like a privacy concern. I would never search google logged in. That's a crazy thing to do in 2022.
These are obviously answered problems for anyone on HN but not obvious problems for the majority of users that have never even installed an extension (even an adblocker). Chrome avoids all of these by automatically managing the shortcuts (clearly named), providing clear in-browser always visible UI about multiple profiles (also clearly marked), and explaining to the user how to make/manage them in app.
This is before getting into problems Chrome shares with Firefox like not syncing local profiles or issues with the way things work on Android.