Chris's Wiki :: blog/unix/WeirdFirefoxRemoteControl Commentshttps://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/unix/WeirdFirefoxRemoteControl?atomcommentsDWiki2008-04-17T09:35:51ZRecent comments in Chris's Wiki :: blog/unix/WeirdFirefoxRemoteControl.From 221.184.178.205 on /blog/unix/WeirdFirefoxRemoteControltag:CSpace:blog/unix/WeirdFirefoxRemoteControl:77a99719d982bccd42a0743306139cfb35a774ffFrom 221.184.178.205<div class="wikitext"><p>You can also just start Firefox with -no-remote.</p>
</div>2008-04-17T09:35:51ZFrom 99.236.185.171 on /blog/unix/WeirdFirefoxRemoteControltag:CSpace:blog/unix/WeirdFirefoxRemoteControl:fcf6d20130ed4e957b1c55e23e8ae5bee3a06cdbFrom 99.236.185.171<div class="wikitext"><p>Oh jeez, no wonder it never seems to work for me any more. I guess I started quietly adding the second - at some point.</p>
<p>I'd like to thank GNU for making me used to using -- in front of long options.</p>
<p>MikeP</p>
</div>2008-01-26T15:13:26ZBy Chris Siebenmann on /blog/unix/WeirdFirefoxRemoteControltag:CSpace:blog/unix/WeirdFirefoxRemoteControl:34f341bbbf36eb6b938ef82807b243b997966caaChris Siebenmann<div class="wikitext"><p>The <code>-no-remote</code> command line switch does work. Interestingly, it's not
documented in <code>--help</code>'s output until very recently, although it does
work. Note that it only has one dash, not two; the two dash version is
quietly ignored, although some other Firefox switches use two dashes.</p>
<p>(It seems that two-dash switches are all things that are for low
level libraries, while Firefox's top level switches all use only
one dash.)</p>
<p>Some good reference for Firefox's various command line options are
<a href="http://kb.mozillazine.org/Command_line_arguments">here</a> and
<a href="http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Command_Line_Options">here</a>.</p>
</div>2008-01-25T18:02:46ZFrom 99.236.185.171 on /blog/unix/WeirdFirefoxRemoteControltag:CSpace:blog/unix/WeirdFirefoxRemoteControl:3ef21abf1b5d7a45e8acb4d4028dce3a765dccf2From 99.236.185.171<div class="wikitext"><p>Doesn't --no-remote take care of that? (At least, it used to.)</p>
<p>MikeP</p>
</div>2008-01-25T10:58:23ZBy Dan.Astoorian on /blog/unix/WeirdFirefoxRemoteControltag:CSpace:blog/unix/WeirdFirefoxRemoteControl:510382e19b7de5ddabeb140d5fb02565706de007Dan.Astoorian<div class="wikitext"><blockquote><p>The default Firefox setup on Unix is quite insistent on using remote control if at all possible, to the point where it is impossible to start two copies of Firefox, even on different machines.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Actually, it is possible, though not at all well documented.</p>
<p>If the environment variable <code>MOZ_NO_REMOTE</code> is set to 1, Firefox will (generally) not use remote control. I frequently use something along the lines of:</p>
<pre>
env MOZ_NO_REMOTE=1 firefox -P TestProfile
</pre>
<p>to launch Firefox using a different profile even while Firefox is already running on the same display using my default profile. This is useful if you want browsers running on different machines but using the same display (e.g., to view local documentation via <code>file://</code> or <code>http://localhost/</code> URLs), or to run multiple instances of the browser on the same machine (e.g., using different versions of Firefox, or using different profiles that have different extensions, bookmarks, etc.).</p>
<p>(One gotcha I've run into is that if you try to run a second instance of Firefox using the same profile, firefox will ignore <code>MOZ_NO_REMOTE=1</code> rather than issue the usual "Firefox is already running" message.)</p>
<p>--Dan</p>
</div>2008-01-24T19:40:02ZFrom 66.235.35.243 on /blog/unix/WeirdFirefoxRemoteControltag:CSpace:blog/unix/WeirdFirefoxRemoteControl:1d96b877a07e5a794dd1997490381235e3f8575aFrom 66.235.35.243<div class="wikitext"><p>Amusingly enough there's a race condition during startup, so if you've got two icons for different Firefox profiles and click quickly or you're just fast on the console you can launch two Firefox instances. I haven't looked into why you can't do two with the same profile, I'd assume it's just normal locking. I do this so that I can run an anonymous Firefox profile in parallel with the one that has cookies and yes, you do have issues with external links.</p>
</div>2008-01-24T15:46:20Z