More than One Firefox (Beta) to rule them all - a Dave Martorana concoction

Updated 4/18/08

For those of us who work on the ‘front end development’ side of things, there’s a careful balance we hang in regarding new browser releases. The short version is that as new browsers approach their release candidate status, we need to be checking and double checking our work in them to make sure that their change logs don’t break our work.

At the same time, there’s a known issue with the fact that, more often than not, running the latest beta or release candidate alongside with the production version (and, if you’re a really good developer, one previous version back from the most current production release to take care of things). Internet Explorer is notorious for this and I recall the headaches I went through beta testing it. I essentially resolved to (and continue to resolve to) use multiple virtual machines, one for each version of IE.

Well if you’re on a Mac and into testing Firefox 3 Beta without wiping your profile for Firefox 2.x, check out Dave Martorana’s MultiFirefox.

Multifox

He’s created a little launcher app that, when copied to your Apps folder along with the accompanied Firefox3.app file (appropriately renamed so it wont overwrite the stable version), will let you create and/or select an additional profile, as well as the version of Firefox that you wish to use. It’s clean, it’s simple, and it works.

You can download the dmg (2.0(003) updated 4/18/08) (again, this is mac only), or the zip of the source (2.0 updated 4/18/08) if you want to dig around the guts or, ahem, port to windows? It’s written in Python, because that’s what Dave’s a rockstar in. It’s been rewritten in Cocoa Native, because THATS what kind of rockstar Dave is. That’s not all, though, actually…aside from being an active contributing member of the IndyHall community, Dave also wrote some bitchin’ javascript a couple of weeks ago that got me out of a bind. We’re still testing that but plan to release it as a jquery plugin. Dude knows his stuff and takes a challenge on head first.

Updated DMG and source, v2.0(003) (4/18/08)

4/18/08 Changelog:
 Updated to include Firefox 3 Beta 5
Full rewrite to Cocoa native (severely reduced filesize)
Auto-update for future versions
Auto-detect of all versions of Firefox available
Supposed support for OSX 10.4 (untested)

3/14/08 Changelog:
Updated to Firefox 3 Beta 4

2/25/08 Changelog:
Fixed minor profile bug
Rework of Firefox launch code
Added about screen
Decreased filesize

DMG Download (17.98mb, includes FF3 Beta 5)
Zip of source (661kb, does not include FF3, uncompiled launcher code only)

Dave maintains this project at his site, CodeContortionist

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 and is filed under firefox, multifirefox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.

 
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30 Responses to “More than One Firefox (Beta) to rule them all - a Dave Martorana concoction”

  1. ken rossi
    22. February 2008 at 13:04

    Could someone please make this for windows… I am a few months away from moving over to a mac setup… and a couple of months from FF3… pls pls :-)

  2. :: FF3 beta alongside FF2 - Blogging Meta ::
    22. February 2008 at 16:49

    [...] across this handy little “app” today. MultiFirefox allows for multiple profiles to use different versions of the FireFox. So you can keep your working [...]

  3. Run Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 beta together in OS X « Dan’s Tech-n-Stuff Weblog
    22. February 2008 at 17:22

    [...] use Firefox 2 and a beta of Firefox 3 at the same time, you can either do some manual work or let MultiFireFox handle it for you [...]

  4. Ejecutar diferentes versiones de Firefox en la misma computadora | Bitperbit
    22. February 2008 at 22:16

    [...] aplicación se llama MultiFireFox, y sólo está disponible para Mac OS X, aunque si se siguen estas instrucciones, podemos tener [...]

  5. Florian
    23. February 2008 at 00:16

    This is wonderful! Thank you very much!

  6. JBJ’s Blog » Mac » Testez Firefox 3 sous Mac en toute sécurité avec MultiFirefox
    23. February 2008 at 01:41

    [...] est disponible sur le site de l’auteur, Dave Martorana. Téléchargez le fichier DMG (33 Mo) qui part ailleurs inclus Firefox 3, vous [...]

  7.   How to run Firefox version 2 and 3 beta at the same time — winandmac.com
    23. February 2008 at 03:17

    [...] [via dangerouslyawesome] [...]

  8. Ejecuta varias versiones de Firefox a la vez en tu Mac con MultiFirefox
    23. February 2008 at 05:17

    [...] Vía | DownloadSquad Descarga | MultiFirefox [...]

  9. Varias versiones de Firefox a la vez en tu Mac « No tengo iPhone…
    23. February 2008 at 05:53

    [...] una sola versión de Firefox en su Mac y nos da la posibilidad de jugar con varias a la vez. MultiFirefox es un programa que hasta el momento solo se puede ejecutar en la Mac con el que podemos tener [...]

  10. fireyy blog » MultiFireFox ???firefox??????
    24. February 2008 at 00:32

    [...] ?Windows?Linux??????????????????????MultiFireFox??Python????????????????????????firefox beta 3?DMG??????mac??????????????????????? [...]

  11. ???Firefox2?Firefox3?Windows???? @ ????
    24. February 2008 at 08:55

    [...] ?????MultiFireFox?????Python??????????????????????Mac????????MultiFirefox DMG???fireyy [...]

  12. ea
    25. February 2008 at 15:33

    hi… just found this tool via google but your amazon aws link is not working. shows some xml saying that “access is denied”

  13. Alex Hillman
    25. February 2008 at 15:37

    AWS link fixed, sorry I missed the permissions when I updated the files this morning.

  14. Studio_Graphics » Blog Archive » DAVE MARTORANA’S MULTIFIREFOX
    26. February 2008 at 10:11

    [...] THE_STUDIO’s head multimedia architect has created a tool for front end developers using macs. Alex Hillman writes “He’s created a little launcher app that, when copied to your Apps folder along with the accompanied Firefox3.app file (appropriately renamed so it wont overwrite the stable version), will let you create and/or select an additional profile, as well as the version of Firefox that you wish to use. It’s clean, it’s simple, and it works.” Download this awesome application at Alex’s website here: DAVE MARTORANA’S MULTIFIREFOX [...]

  15. crawlspace|media » Blog Archive » Daily Ma.gnolia Links for February 26
    27. February 2008 at 03:00

    [...] dangerouslyawesome – More than One Firefox (Beta) to rule them all - a Dave Martorana concoction [...]

  16. Run multiple Firefoxes your Mac « 0ddn1x: tricks with *nix
    28. February 2008 at 18:08

    [...] Run multiple Firefoxes your Mac Filed under: OSX — 0ddn1x @ 2008-02-28 23:06:13 +0000 http://www.dangerouslyawesome.com/2008/02/22/more-than-one-firefox-beta-to-rule-them-all-a-dave-mart... [...]

  17. Run multiple Firefoxes on your Mac « 0ddn1x: tricks with *nix
    28. February 2008 at 18:20

    [...] Run multiple Firefoxes on your Mac Filed under: OSX — 0ddn1x @ 2008-02-28 23:20:37 +0000 http://www.dangerouslyawesome.com/2008/02/22/more-than-one-firefox-beta-to-rule-them-all-a-dave-mart... [...]

  18. lo-fi librarian» Blog Archive » This Week’s Useful Tools
    1. March 2008 at 17:24

    [...] Multi Firefox - lets you create a second profile so you can easily switch between Firefox 2 and 3 without losing any of your settings (Mac). [...]

  19. the Idea Shower » » Wanna Beta Test the Dramatically New Read It Later?
    10. March 2008 at 09:33

    [...] Note: You can run Firefox 3 and Firefox 2 together on the same machine if need be.  Here are some instructions on how to do so:   Windows  -  Mac [...]

  20. Another Plug. Well, Sorta. « Knight’s Trike
    15. March 2008 at 12:43

    [...] program, which gets confusing.) But never fear, there are two solutions! The first, which I use, is MultiFirefox. It allows you to keep multiple profiles and multiple versions of Firefox open at the same time, so [...]

  21. Not About Tech
    3. April 2008 at 16:33

    MultiFireFox utility to run Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 beta side-by-side…

    …

  22. Neal
    8. April 2008 at 22:23

    Hi. Firefox 3 beta 5 is out. Is it safe to just get the beta 5, rename it to Firefox3.app like the one in your package, and just use that instead?

    Thanks.

  23. Alex Hillman
    9. April 2008 at 10:57

    Neal,
    You can, indeed, simply rename a new version of Firefox to Firefox3.app and it will work.

    There’s a new Cocoa version that Dave is working on, it will be bundled with the newest beta as well.

  24. Neal
    9. April 2008 at 20:50

    Oooo. I guess I’ll wait for that instead then.

    Thanks lots. :D

  25. Addison
    20. April 2008 at 03:19

    I can’t get mine to work. Every time I open it, it tells me to create a new profile and so I click ok and then it quits. Any ideas? I have firefox 2 installed already. Originally it was called BonEcho because I am using a version of firefox 2 edited to run better on intel macs but then I renamed it to Firefox 2 but it still doesn’t work. Hopefully you can figure out the problem.

    Thanks

  26. Dave Martorana
    20. April 2008 at 12:50

    @Addison - MultiFirefox assumes that in your /Applications folder there is at least one application named Firefox. This is obviously a bug, since you have a version called Firefox2, which it should pick up on. I’ll fix this bug today and release an update. When I have, (if you have version 2.0) opening MultiFirefox will launch the auto-updater.

    I’ll post back when I’m finished. Thanks for pointing that out!

  27. ian
    23. April 2008 at 04:19

    Hey - thanks for this. Nice app. FF3 is solid, but not all service providers have caught up with it. Just found one yesterday that didn’t recognise the new FF3 user-agent, so I had to roll back to FF2 to get it to work. This version switcher makes it easy to jump back if I really need to.

    Thanks

  28. Ruprict
    12. May 2008 at 08:25

    So, I have the same problem as Addison. I start MFF and it asks if I want to check for updates. Any answer results in MFF crashing. I can send you a crash report, if you think it’d help.

    Oh, and I am on a G5….that matter?

  29. Dave Martorana
    12. May 2008 at 11:02

    @Addison, the newest version of MultiFirefox should have your problem fixed.

    @Ruprict - that is indeed an odd error, we’ll figure it out together. It should not matter that you’re on a G5, it’s built as a Universal application targeting 10.4 and 10.5, both PPC and Intel.

  30. ScottBruin
    16. May 2008 at 18:09

    I’m having the same problem with a crash on a 1.8ghz PowerMac G5.

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