Multiple Browsers or Browser Profiles?

For years I’ve used multiple browsers to separate projects and log-ins. A few years ago, Google Chrome and many other browsers gave users the ability to create multiple profiles, but I was already established with multiple browsers. Now I’m taking another look at profiles.

Some of the currently available web browsers that can be used for different people, places, and projects.

My Browser Usage

I use a lot of web browsers. I’m primarily Mac-based, though I have an Android phone, a Windows studio media server, a couple of iPads, and both Windows and Mac laptops.

Mac Browsers (Main Workstation)

• Chrome — my primary web browser for surfing (personal and professional), including main access to most of my online apps and social media. Used for my main social media and services accounts and managing my main business, Pariah Burke Training & Consulting and iAmPariah.com .
• Brave — Private browsing when I don’t want to be tracked by Google, Facebook, etc. (like when shopping for gifts I don’t want to see advertised ad nauseam for the next month across all my devices).
• Opera — aka HHH browser. Everything I do for The Hard, Heavy & Hair Show and PariahRocks.com is done in Opera, including social media posting and interaction at @PariahRocks accounts. It includes extensions for social media management, site management, managing the show’s cloud-based studio phone and voicemail system.
• Vivaldi — 100% Google Remote Desktop connection to The Hard, Heavy & Hair Show studio media server for building radio show playlists, managing the library, and so on without having to sit at the media server.
• Arc — Similar to the way The Hard, Heavy & Hair Show and its social media accounts need separation from my other social media, so do the social media accounts for the Sex, Love & Music with Monica Lee & Pariah Burke. It’s a podcast and a radio show, and it also has a call-in studio line, voicemail, and its own accounts for social media, podcast upload and management, and so on.
• Iron — Another radio show project, currently in development, uses this browser the same way as my other radio and podcast projects, with separate social media logins, publishing accounts, and so on.
• Firefox — Portland State University work. I teach graduate classes at Portland State University, which provides me GMail, Google Drive, and other accounts under my .EDU email address that I have to log into separately from my regular Google Workspace and personal Google accounts. I also use Firefox exclusively in class when Web-based resources become relevant to the education; it keeps my logins private and allows me to let Chrome automatically log me into things without necessarily logging in while teaching.
• Microsoft Edge — Similar to my use of Firefox, I use Edge exclusively for teaching (non-University) classes. Its this browser students see on screen in classrooms, auditoriums, and Zoom. I can go to places like, say, Adobe.com resources and not have my actual work and client work (some of which is under NDA or Federal privacy agreements) shown to students while still being able to demonstrate Adobe.com and other sites and services. This browser also connects to Citrix Virtual Machines and uses another Google Remote Desktop connection to a different teaching Windows computer so I can show Windows and Mac on the same screen.
• Safari — Clean, fast, news reading without the lag of Chrome or the weight of Chrome’s extensions, and without the tracking of Google and Meta.

Windows Browsers

The Hard, Heavy & Hair Show Studio Media Server

• Brave — Brave’s privacy and anti-tracking technology are important to me when I’m accessing Haulix, PlayMPE, and other, more privacy-centric record label distribution services and servers to download the weekly new music for the radio show. Most of the show research is also done on Brave to give me the freedom to go down rabbit holes without Google and Meta targeting ads at me. For example: I recently did some research on Michael Jackson’s use of the Shure SM7 microphone for Cover Song of the Week clues on a show that mentioned Thriller. I made the mistake of doing that research in Chrome. Now I’m plagued by Sweetwater ads for the mic, stands, boom arms, flags, and so on, and by ads for cheap Chinese knockoff microphones.

Windows 10 Teaching Laptop

• Chrome — The main web browser I use (on the laptop directly or via a remote connection inside Edge) for teaching Canva, Creative Cloud, Adobe Express, and other online tools, which does not sync with my normal Google Chrome profile or my accounts at other sites, but does include extensions for teaching, such as evaluating website accessibility/Section 508-compliance.
• Edge — On this computer, Microsoft Edge is mostly a backup for when Chrome fails (even Google puts out bad updates sometimes), but is also sometimes used to access my cloud storage services from the teaching laptop without risking auto-login on my main display browser (Chrome).

iPad Browsers

• Safari — Primary browser on iPad in large part because it’s impossible to make anything else default.
• Opera, Firefox, and Brave — For the same reasons as on my Mac, but with the ability to work mobile on the iPad because all these browsers allow profile syncing from their desktop counterparts, keeping my logins, auto-logins, bookmarks, and user settings in sync across platforms. They all three also offer built-in VPNs to allow secure browsing in public locations.

Phone (Android) Browsers

• Chrome — It’s fully integrated into the operating system and near impossible to replace without rooting the phone. Honestly, it’s because of the requirement to use Chrome on my phone that I’m pretty much forced to keep it as my primary desktop browser, too.
• Opera, Firefox, and Brave — For the same reasons as on my Mac, but with the ability to work mobile on the phone because all these browsers allow profile syncing from their desktop counterparts, keeping my logins, auto-logins, bookmarks, and user settings in sync across platforms. They all three also offer built-in VPNs to allow secure browsing in public locations.

Move to Profiles?

That is the question I’m pondering. I have very specific needs. I don’t have the typical work and personal browser separation of most people who look to profiles, but I have many different projects and roles, all with their own accounts and logins, and sometimes, their own needed extensions.

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I also use Keyboard Maestro to automate a lot of my work — mostly the many tiny little tasks that kill creativity and productivity through death-by-a-thousand-clicks. With it, I’ve streamlined my work in just about every app and procedure on my Mac, but also, via Vivaldi’s Google Remote Desktop connection to the Media Server, also on Windows. As of today, eight years of using Keyboard Maestro, the app itself reports that its saved me a cumulative six years of effort! I worry that moving from multiple browsers to one or two browsers with multiple profiles will reduce the efficiency or capability of my KM macros.

There are KM Forum posts like “How to switch Google Chrome profile”, “Google Chrome Profile — Shell Script”, “Opening two Google People Profiles”, and “Macro: Get App Title, Window Name, Size, and Position”, but they still seem less efficient and… well, straight forward as just having a macro activate a different application entirely and send commands to it.

Another hurdle I see to multiple profiles is the difficulty in backing them up and syncing them to different devices — or, indeed, just restoring them easily when I get a new computer or something happens to the one I’m currently working on. With Google Chrome, for example, multiple profiles exist only locally unless each one is tied to a separate GMail account, which requires occasional maintenance to keep it from being purged for inactivity. Microsoft Edge, being Chromium-based, works the same way, except with Outlook.com or Hotmail.com accounts.

Sticking with Multiple Browsers, Not Profiles

In the process of writing this blog post I think I convinced myself not to move to browser profiles. Looking at my needs and comparing them to profiles, I don’t think there’s a match. Browser profiles seem ideal for:

• Separating work and personal browser usage;
• Giving different family members using the same computer their own logins, bookmarks, and extensions; and,
• Creating project-specific workspaces for short-term projects.

I don’t think they’ll work as well with my needs of:

• Separate workspaces, logins, bookmarks, and extensions for permanent areas of concern and long-term projects;
• Easy targeting and control by Keyboard Maestro macros for automation; and,
• Cross-platform synchronization for work on my macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android devices.

I guess I’ll stick with multiple browsers. After all, SSD space is cheap and there are many, many browser choices. A few of them I haven’t even tried yet, so I suppose I’d better find more projects.