mozilla / multi-account-containers

Firefox Multi-Account Containers lets you keep parts of your online life separated into color-coded tabs that preserve your privacy. Cookies are separated by container, allowing you to use the web with multiple identities or accounts simultaneously.
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/
Mozilla Public License 2.0
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Delete all containers and reset to default containers option #1977

Open Valtarien opened 3 years ago

Valtarien commented 3 years ago

TL:DR

**In summary, I request the implementation of a "delete all containers and reset to defaults" feature in the extension preferences, and option upon re-installing the extension. This should be a fairly straightforward solution to resolve not only problems resulting from the "Temporary Containers" extension, but any other problematic extension that exists or gets developed in the future.

Also, is there any way to manually delete and reset all containers to a default new installation configuration?**

Add-ons

Actual behavior

After uninstalling the "Temporary Containers" (TC) extension, there were hundreds of temporary containers ("tmp###") left behind. After uninstalling "Multi-Account Containers" (MAC) and all dependent extensions that relied on containers, deleting my cache and profile, recreating, re-syncing Firefox (FF), and reinstalling MAC, I still have all those unwanted temporary containers.

Expected behavior

Uninstalling and reinstalling MAC should provide an option to reset containers to default initial offerings. Additionally, it would be ideal to allow for a "delete all containers and reset to defaults" option in the extension preferences.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Install MAC.
  2. Install "Temporary Containers" (TC) extension and start browsing.
  3. After visiting several sites, allowing for the creation of temporary containers, uninstall both TC and MAC.
  4. Delete entire profile and restart FF.
  5. Re-sync your profile.
  6. Re-install MAC and notice that all temporary containers remain, with no option but to delete them one-by-one, involving multiple clicks for each deletion.
Valtarien commented 3 years ago

After further investigation, I see that this problem is a recurring one for many people, at least in the following posted issues:

With so many posts about this, and the unresolved nature of it, it is no wonder I've not gotten a response here. Still, I would appreciate it if someone who finds a solution to this problem would notify me here in a PM. I have managed to get rid of my own tmp containers (over a thousand!) by utilizing various proposed solutions, disabling sync, uninstalling all extensions affecting containers, re-syncing Firefox, re-installing, deleting recurring synced tmp containers, etc. It is time-consuming and frustrating, to say the least. I will surely never again use "Temporary Containers" after this experience, at least until the developers find a way to prevent the temp* containers from syncing and cluttering up the containers list.

onebod commented 8 months ago

Same problem for years now. Recently found an option to delete containers with less hassle: about:preferences#containers

Sync just puts them back though. The ability to wipe the entire thing and start over is imperative for anyone who has used this and Temporary Containers extension.

Another confounding annoyance is using with Cookie Auto-Delete which does not sync also means every site I want to allow cookies must be set manually in every container until I export CA-D to the new machine. In the meantime the terrible and inconsistent way M-AC works means I'm constantly ignoring or messing around with containers and CA-D options.

The cognitive overhead and gnawing background concern mean I am likely to remove M-AC which is a shame because the basic idea is valuable because it is important and the basic intention is entirely overwhelmed by the ridiculous function of syncing containers that were supposed to be temporary, can easily programmatically be identified as such and have been repeatedly been deleted manually.