如何多实例运行Firefox

How to Install & Run Multiple Firefox Versions in Windows Simultaneously

 

Posted on February 4, 2011 by dennisplucinik in Business | Tagged with: browsers, Firefox, QA

When developing websites, you need to test in multiple browser versions, at the same time. Fortunately Firefox has an easy way to do this.

The process involves doing the following:

1. Creating a "profile" for each browser version
2. Adding a parameter to the shortcut target

Step 1: Create a profile for each browser version
To open Profile Manager, type cmd+r in Windows to open up the Run prompt and type this in:

"C:\\Program Files\\Mozilla Firefox3.5\\firefox" -profilemanager -no-remote

This will open up the Profile Manager. What you need to do is create a profile for each version you plan on running. So click "Create Profile", and then enter your profile name. I recommend naming it something like Firefox35, Firefox36, etc. so it's easily identifiable. Click "Finish" and make sure to check the "Don't ask at startup" box

The Profile Manager is really meant to be used to allow multiple users of one machine (think about a family) to have different plugins, themes, bookmarks, etc. on whatever is the current Firefox installed. The key to making it work for us developers is to augment the shortcut target with a couple parameters that will auto-load a specific profile (i.e., -P, & -no-remote)

Step 2:
Right-click your shortcut icon, click Properties, and modify the "Target" value like so:

"C:\\Program Files\\Mozilla Firefox3.5\\firefox" -P FireFox35 -no-remote

Do this for each other version of Firefox you want to run and you should be good to go. The -P allows you to choose the profile, and the -no-remote allows you to run muiltiple versions at the same time. Also, remember to install each different version in a different folder. I have only ever done this for Windows however now that I'm running Mac OS X as well, I'll try and come back to this post and add some updates. I hope this was helpful!