Whether you are sharing a computer with a roommate or are afraid you will screw something up while developing a Firefox extension – it is a good idea to have multiple Firefox profiles. I use one profile for general browsing, another while I’m doing web development, and another while I am doing Firefox development. Each profile has a different set of favorites and extensions installed on it. Each profile is setup for it’s particular task. Creating a profile is simple.

1. Close out of all Firefox windows
2. Open up a command prompt and type

“C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe” –profilemanager

3. This will start the Firefox profile manager. Click “Create Profile…”

4. This will start the profile wizard. Click the Next button.

5. Enter your profile name. I will be using “dev” for development.

6. Your profile has been created.

7. Now you can create a shortcut on your desktop that will open up Firefox using this profile. For the item location, use:

“C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe” -P “dev”

The -P selects the profile “dev.” Replace dev with the value you used in step 5.

Note: Only one profile can be open at a time. That is, if you open Firefox using your default profile, then click on the newly created shortcut – Firefox will open using your default profile.