How can I to save time on Firefox updates and notifications when running dozens of profiles?

Question

I need to be able to test 27 different web apps in isolation, so I've created 27 Firefox shortcuts with the -no-remote -p aProfileName. I'm not asking this question, but just using the technique. Each home page is set to one of the 27 apps. That all works fine.

The problem is with updates to Firefox and plugins. I'm always fighting off the 'this or that has been updated' messages, which annoys me.

Is there a way I can synchronize across profiles or something? I wouldn't mind seeing the 'updated' message once, then (optimally) pressing some kind of 'share across profiles' button. I doubt that would be available, but maybe someone has written a batch job or something?

EDIT Feb 2013: Please, if anyone has found a way to handle this, please comment/answer! I am still suffering with this.

Answer 1

I've never tried this but one could share the extensions directory between profiles. If you are on Windows you can use the junction utility, on Linux and OS X ln -s will do as well. You just create an extensions directory somewhere (copy it from one of the profiles) and replace the extensions directory in all profiles by a link/junction to it. Possible problems with this approach:

• On Windows: extension updates failing because you are restarting one Firefox instance but others are also open and hold locks to the extension files.
• Firefox doesn't recognize that an extension updated and doesn't clear caches (Firefox looks at the modification time of the directory, might not work correctly with a link/junction).