fidzu : thunderbird

If your online activities involve logging in and out of a lot of different accounts - often on the same website - Profile Manager Pro can be a time-saving game changer. The extension provides a one-click login process for multiple online accounts, so you can effortlessly jump between profiles. From social media management to web development, QA testing and more, Profile Manager Pro removes the painstaking friction of constant account switching.

"One of the most interesting aspects of developing Profile Manager Pro is realizing how many different workflows can benefit from efficient account switching," explains its creator, Islam Elsayed. Consider developers who need to save sessions for different roles, such as admins, moderators or regular users, to test functionality; freelancers working across multiple client dashboards; or support professionals investigating account-specific behavior. The potential uses for Profile Manager Pro are practically limitless.

Elsayed makes clear that Profile Manager Pro isn't intended to replace Firefox's full browser profiles; rather, the aim is to make it easier to save, organize, and restore individual website sessions within a browser environment. "I think that distinction is important because it illustrates how browser extensions can complement existing browser capabilities by addressing very specific everyday frustrations."

While the extension provides a fairly straightforward function, its design and development were anything but simple. Elsayed says his biggest development hurdle was creating a reliable account-switching experience across websites that handle authentication and session management differently. Modern websites often use tangled combinations of cookies, browser storage, authentication tokens and other complex security mechanisms. A technical solution that works perfectly on one website may not function at all on another. "These challenges taught me an important lesson: The best productivity tools often hide considerable technical complexity behind a simple user experience."

Another challenge is balancing functionality with user privacy and security. Session-management extensions interact with sensitive browser data, so Elsayed goes to great lengths to ensure user protection - starting with a local-first approach to development. Saved session information stays within the user's browser environment by default. Users don't need to create a Profile Manager Pro account or send their browsing sessions to a third-party server. The extension also offers optional encrypted Google Drive sync, providing even more control over stored data.

"Responsible session management is essential," says Elsayed. "This is why I believe privacy should be considered throughout the design process rather than an afterthought. Ultimately, my goal is to give users convenience without requiring them to surrender unnecessary control over their data."

As for future development plans, Elsayed frames Profile Manager Pro as an "evolving project." He intends to focus on optimizing the profile management system and improving backup and sync experiences.

"My long-term vision for Profile Manager Pro is to become an increasingly powerful yet lightweight tool for managing online identities and workflows," says Elsayed. "I believe thoughtful improvements based on real user needs are more valuable than adding features simply for the sake of adding them. For me, the most rewarding part of development is solving those complex problems so users don't have to think about them."

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Do you have an intriguing extension development story? Do tell! Maybe your story should appear on this blog. Contact us at amo-featured [at] mozilla [dot] org and let us know a bit about your extension development journey.

The post Developer Spotlight: Profile Manager Pro appeared first on Mozilla Add-ons Community Blog.

26 Oct 2026 10:24pm GMT

TLDR:

• To fund general maintenance, donate to the Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund or sponsor the RustNL Maintainers Team
• To fund specific features and improvements, sponsor fundable Rust Project Goals
• To fund individual contributors, donate to their GitHub Sponsors accounts

There is always so much to do in the Rust Project! New features to implement, bugs to fix, performance optimizations to make, issues to triage… It takes a lot of work to keep our high bar of quality while also shipping new features and improvements. And the workload keeps increasing with the continuous growth of Rust adoption.

As is unfortunately common in open source projects, a large fraction of that work is currently done by volunteers. That causes various issues, such as people burning out or complex features taking many years to ship.

Unsurprisingly, one of the best ways to help improve that is to get more people who work on Rust funded! This year, several funding initiatives started ramping up, and we already experience many positive effects. They helped us improve the maintenance status of critical Rust projects and make significant progress on several long-awaited features, such as allocators, the never type, the next trait solver or the Polonius borrow checker. However, only a fraction of people working on Rust are currently funded for their work.

We know that there are Rust users, both individuals and companies, who would like to help improve Rust by funding it, but it might not always be obvious how exactly to do that. This post thus provides suggestions on how you can support the development of Rust in three ways.

If you're unsure which option fits, or would like to discuss funding on behalf of your company, please contact the Funding team.

Fund general maintenance

Maintenance is a continuous process required to keep Rust (or any software project for that matter) working. It consists of two main activities. The first is general housekeeping, such as ensuring that Continuous Integration works, dependencies are kept up-to-date and issues, bugs and security incidents are promptly triaged and resolved. The second is performing refactorings and code reviews, which ensures that the codebase will be able to evolve and continuously ship new features, without accruing extensive technical debt.

Having quality maintenance is crucial for the long-term health of Rust, yet it is typically very difficult to find funding for it; funders often want to sponsor specific new features, rather than just "keeping the lights on". However, without sufficient maintenance, it becomes much more difficult, and much slower, to ship new features. Improving the maintenance of Rust thus also helps us ship features and improvements faster, though the effects are sometimes only observable over longer periods of time.

Funding maintenance is a great choice if you want to let us decide how best to improve Rust. The Rust Funding team continuously looks for Rust teams and projects that require help with their maintenance efforts, and allocates available funds to Rust maintainers who could help improve the situation.

To fund Rust maintainers, consider donating to the Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund or sponsoring the RustNL Maintainers Team.

Fund specific features and improvements

There are always many Rust improvements and new features that are in progress. We track some of those initiatives through Rust Project Goals. Each Goal describes a specific improvement to Rust: what it is, who is going to develop and drive it forward and which Rust teams are willing to help reviewing and maintaining it.

Some of those Goals are looking for funding. Either to help their owner dedicate time and focus to push the given feature forward, or to fund maintainers who will perform refactorings necessary to unblock that feature and review its implementation. Often funding is required for both. When a Goal is properly funded, the probability that it will achieve its milestones is much higher, which then translates in the given improvement being shipped sooner to Rust users.

Funding Project Goals is a great choice if you want to help push forward specific Rust features or Rust toolchain improvements that will benefit you or your company.

To fund contributors working on Project Goals, consider taking a look at Goals that need funding and reaching out to their funding contact. If in doubt how to proceed, reach out to the Rust Funding team.

Fund individual contributors

There are hundreds of people in the Rust Project who continuously work on improving Rust. Some of them have personal fundraising profiles (e.g. on GitHub Sponsors), which allows you to support them directly.

There might be various reasons for supporting a specific person. Maybe they are maintaining a crate that you love to use, maybe you like reading their blog posts, or maybe you are simply a fan of the work that they do. Whatever the reason, we are sure that they would appreciate your support!

Funding individual contributors is a great choice if you want to directly support Rust contributors whose work you appreciate.

To fund individual Rust contributors, check out their GitHub profile or personal website to see what options there are for supporting them. You can also examine our list of Rust Project members who can be supported through GitHub Sponsors^[1].

Conclusion

We hope that this post is useful to anyone who would potentially like to invest funds into making Rust better. You can also find a shortened version of the "how to fund Rust guide" at the Funding page of the Rust website, or check out a RustConf 2026 talk by Niko Matsakis about how Project Goals and their funding works.

If you are a company looking to fund the development of Rust, consider joining the Rust Commercial Network. Joining the network is free, and Rust Foundation membership is not required. It can help you find opportunities for funding improvements in specific areas related to Rust usage (e.g. user interfaces, language interop, supply chain security, etc.) and collaborate on funding Rust development with other companies.

There are of course other ways of helping Rust other than donating funds. For example, you can check out Project Goals that are looking for contributors or more generally check our contributor onboarding guide. Companies can also help by giving employees paid time to contribute upstream, or by hiring Rust contributors to do that work. One possible model is the Engineer in Residence role, that was recently established in the Rust Foundation.

1. Note that this list is not exhaustive; there are some Project members who accept donations through GitHub Sponsors (or another fundraising platform), but did not opt into being listed on this page. ↩

26 Oct 2026 12:00am GMT

A group of familiar faces from the early web just got back together to ask an important question: What happened to the internet?

Sure, there was a time when it was a little less polished, and a lot less speedy, but it was yours. Overly Attached Girlfriend may have wanted to know everything about you, but your browser didn't need to. Dancing Matt boogied all over the world, without any corporations tracking him or selling his personal data. And while Annoying Orange is incredibly annoying, he's not as annoying as forced AI features.

These beloved early internet personalities remind us of a time when surfing the web felt open, organic, and most importantly, personal. And good news: With Firefox, it still can.

That's why we're teaming up with these icons to remind people what our browser offers, and show those who wandered off why now is the time to come back.

The team behind the comeback

For Mozilla Chief Marketing Officer John Solomon, the aim of the campaign started with winning back people who originally loved and used Firefox.

"I kept going back to Firefox's heyday, when the internet was really fun, weird, and interesting. The challenge was: how do you lean on nostalgia and heritage, but not be stuck in the past?"

The campaign was created by We Believers, one of the world's most awarded independent agencies, with production handled by nobodys and direction by the Sunny Sixteen collective.

"We wanted to create an idea that truly belongs to Firefox - a challenger browser that helped shape the internet's golden years and stayed independent as Big Tech took over. The goal? Remind former users that what they loved about Firefox matters more than ever now," said Gustavo Lauria, Founder and CCO at We Believers.

Solomon said the finished campaign achieves the goal of embracing Firefox's history without living in it: "Our partners really cracked it. We wanted to remind people of what made the internet so wonderful in the first place. These are people who helped make it strange, creative, surprising, and fun. None of them were trying to go viral. They were normal, everyday people who were using the internet. That's the way the internet should be and why we feel it's a great moment for Firefox. Always independent and unlike big tech, not trying to extract more from everyday people."

The internet you remember is still out there

Whether you used Firefox back in the day, or are simply looking for a better browsing experience, we're still here, staying true to the values we were built on. We believe the internet should be open, accessible, and shaped by the people who use it, not just the platforms that profit from their attention and data.

This means a web where you can explore without feeling tracked or used for profit, where you decide for yourself how new technology fits into your life, and you can trust that your browser protects you by default. Firefox has built-in privacy protections to help limit tracking, lets you decide if AI features appear and customize how they behave, and uses open source code that anyone can see. To learn more about what sets Firefox apart, check out five reasons to choose the browser that puts you first.

We know a better internet isn't built by finding new ways to capture your attention or information. It's about giving you more freedom to make the web your own.

The web is yours to explore

The internet has changed a lot since Numa Numa Guy first danced his way into our collective memory. But the things that made it magical - creativity, curiosity, community, and the freedom to explore - are still worth protecting.

Firefox has championed those values since the beginning, and we're not giving up on them now. That's why we're celebrating the people who helped make the early web what it was, while reminding everyone that a more open, human internet is still an option.

The early days of the internet may be behind us, but the spirit doesn't have to be. Experience it for yourself. Now more than ever: come back to Firefox.

The post Firefox reunites meme royalty to remind you what the internet used to feel like appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

25 Oct 2026 11:58am GMT