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Comparison
If you open “Private Windows” in Firefox, or have "Permanent private mode" active by selecting "Never remember history" in the Firefox preferences, all tabs that you open within Private Windows (even multiple ones) use the same underlying container and accept first-party and third-party cookies. So if you do your browsing within Private Windows, it can easily be tracked between sites while the windows are open. A way to test that is, just login to a site in one Private Window, open another tab in a new Private Window and open the same site again — you’ll see that you’re still logged in. Of course, if you then close the windows, the container storage is cleared.
All first-party data will remain on your disk. If you for example open a link to an item on a shopping site in one tab and a little bit later open a link to another item on the same shopping site in another tab — then it’s clear to the site that you saw both items because of cookies/storage.
FPI is powerful, in fact the way it manages storage made containers possible in the first place, since both use the same mechanism under the hood: origin attributes. They can even be used in combination which "double keys" the storage.
Things FPI can't do compared to TC
- Same as with "Private Windows" and “Disabled third-party cookies” applies: FPI is not a data cleaner, repeated visits to the same first party have the same storage unless the storage is cleared somehow. TC has new storage for every new TC.
- FPI is strict and can't be relaxed per domain. TC allows you to relax its isolation per domain and even container; e.g. for situations where you want to make sure everything works as normal, like payments, you can exclude a whole permanent container from isolation
If you're interested in a deep-dive into comparison with FPI or even want to participate in the discussion, then you can here.
Total Cookie Protection was introduced in Firefox 86 as part of ETP Strict Mode and is enabled by default since Firefox 103.
- TCP is based on FPI, which means the same as with FPI applies: TCP is not a data cleaner, repeated visits to the same first party have the same storage unless the storage is cleared somehow while TC has new storage for every new TC.
- The difference to FPI is that TCP automatically relaxes the container bounds based on some heuristic. As of yet the heuristics can't be manually configured and if a website breaks you have to change the whole ETP setting, so more convenience but less control compared to TC Isolation settings.
The same as with "Private Windows" and “Disabled third-party cookies” applies as long as the cookie storage isn’t cleared — which depends on which settings you have in CAD and defaults to manually clicking "Clean". It’s still pretty useful to use Cookies AutoDelete: it can keep your permanent container clean from unwanted Cookies.
The same as with "Private Windows" and “Disabled third-party cookies” applies. However, different profiles / VMs of course greatly increase security because storage-wise everything is totally separated and thus also stronger isolated. But that doesn't apply to per Tab or per Domain basis.
So, whether you use First-Party Isolation, Cookie Cleaners, different Profiles or VMs - Containers can give you an easy to handle layer of isolation, privacy and security on top. That being said, please keep in mind that none of that makes you untrackable, because of Browser fingerprinting.