Daily Cup of Tech

It’s happened to all of us. Sitting there at the computer doing “whatever” when your browser pops up. You haven’t clicked a link or done anything to go to the Internet. For me, this borders on mutiny: my computer should only do what I tell it to do. For users of Firefox, the solution is simple but not necessarily obvious. (difficulty: intermediate, Windows Instructions)

First, you need to create a short-cut to Firefox that opens the Profile Manager. The easiest way to do this is to simply make a copy of an already existing Firefox shortcut. Rename it “Mozilla Firefox Profile Manager” (or whatever you wish). Next, you will need to right click on the shortcut and select “Properties” from the context menu. The “Shortcut Properties” dialog will open. If the “Shortcut” tab is not selected, select it now.

The area you want to make changes is the “Target” text box. This holds the program location for the shortcut. If you’ve got a default setup, the target should have the following text (including quotes):

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

What you want to do is change it so that it reads as follows:

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

Notice that the -ProfileManager is outside of the quotes and there is a space between the target and the stuff behind it.

Click “OK” and the dialog will disappear.

Now, double click the shortcut you’ve just created and modified and the Firefox profile manager should start. For the novices here, this is nothing to stress over although it may look a little complicated. Just take your time and look at it. Chances are you’ll have only one profile (default) and there will be a check mark in the “Don’t ask at startup” option. You want to uncheck that option. This will make Firefox ask you every time what profile you want to use to surf the Internet. Sure, it may be a little annoying to some but it won’t automatically connect. The next time you run Firefox using any normal method (or the shortcut you just created), it will wait for you to select a profile or exit (or some other action) before doing anything else. This gives you the chance to cancel whatever website a rogue program was trying to open. If you’re ready to surf the Internet, click the “Start Firefox” button. If not, click “Exit.”

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