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THE TECHNO CLUB [ TECHNOWORLDINC.COM ] => Web Browsers => Topic started by: Hellraiser on August 12, 2007, 10:11:45 AM



Title: Firefox: One At A Time, Please
Post by: Hellraiser on August 12, 2007, 10:11:45 AM
Firefox: One At A Time, Please

One of the things I've always found problematic about Firefox (even though I'm quite fond of it in general) is how it's not possible to launch FF windows in their own processes.  All FF windows are shared by the same, single instance of the firefox.exe image, so if one crashes, they all crash.

I did some digging and found out that it is possible to launch a new instance of Firefox in a separate process, but only if it uses a different profile.  The reason for this, I suspect, is because the profile is locked for exclusive use by one instance of the program and can't (yet) be shared between instances.

If you have multiple profiles, though, and you want to use them side-by side, all you need to do is create a batch file to launch FF that way (http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=215734) , like so:

@echo off
set MOZ_NO_REMOTE=1
start firefox.exe -p
set MOZ_NO_REMOTE=0

This sets the MOZ_NO_REMOTE environment variable, which FF uses to detect if it's supposed to launch in a new process or not.  When it launches, though, it'll ask you what profile you want to use; if you attempt to use the profile that's currently in use, it'll forbid it.

I should point out that if FF 2.0 crashes, it does attempt to re-open the windows you had open at the time when you next launch the program.  This is at least partial compensation for not having multiple instances, but it's still not quite the same thing.

source: thegline.com (http://www.thegline.com/windows/software/firefox/)