Using Multiple Google Accounts

I have two separate Google Gmail accounts. One I use for my close friends and important business and the other I use for everything else. Unfortunately, you can only be logged into one account at a time when using most Google services, like Blogger, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and many others.

Advanced Firefox users may have used Greasemonkey to run various scripts to make switching user accounts easy, but I didn’t care for this approach when I tried it. The various scripts available for download weren’t always up to date and were extremely temperamental and buggy. Here are a few other options available to you.

1. Use two different browsers

The simplest solution. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Flock, Opera and other browsers often store their cookies in different locations on your computer, allowing you to have different cookie profiles for each. If you open up IE and FF at the same time, you could be logged into two different Google accounts, one for each browser. If you use the same browser for each account (for instance my GoOrange profile for Firefox and my JeffK profile for Internet Explorer) you don’t have to worry about logging in and out repeatedly, simply use the browser set up for the appropriate account.

This method is extremely simple and only requires that you have two browsers installed on your machine. The downside, similarly, is that you will be opening two different programs at various times, or will have two browsers running at the same time instead of just one, which will use up more system resources. Still, for many novices, this may be the best approach. This method is limited to one account per browser. If you have three accounts, you’ll need to have three different browsers running, or else sign in and out with one of the browsers.

2. Use the IE Tab extension (for Firefox).

This is my method of choice. If you primarily use the Firefox browser, there is an extension called IE Tab that is available for download from the Mozilla site. What this extension does, is with a simple click of a button, it switches Firefox from the default Gecko rendering engine to an IE rendering engine. This is a very useful extension to have and it comes in handy with those few websites that only seem to display properly in IE. This extension enables you to view them in FF just as they would be displayed in IE.

The reason this works for multiple accounts is that the IE Tab extension, when activated, uses your Internet Explorer cookies rather than your Firefox cookies. Therefore, with the press of a button, a page is viewed with your IE cookies (set up for a different Google account) and with another click of a button, the page is viewed with your default FF cookies. This is a simple one-click way to alternate between two different accounts. You can have these open on two different tabs, or simply switch back and forth using the same tab.

This method is limited to two Google accounts, one for your IE cookie profile and one for your Firefox cookie profile.

3. Install Greasemonkey and appropriate scripts into Firefox.

This is a popular option for many people and has a more flexibility in certain areas. Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension that allows you to download and run various user scripts that alter the way Firefox works with certain webpages. I won’t go into a detailed explanation between scripts and extensions, but they are very similar in the results they produce.

The pros of this method is that you can switch between any number of Google accounts, using a drop down menu on the web page. If you have more than two accounts that you use frequently, this method will be more convenient than the previous two.

The downside is that these scripts can be extremely buggy, and don’t work on all Google pages. Depending on your patience and frustration levels you may find these to be too much of a headache.

While the IE Tab extension has been around a while and thoroughly tested by many people in the community, many of the scripts available for Greasemonkey are fairly new and untested. For security reasons, novice users should be very cautious when running scripts from an unknown source.

Avoid Opera Web Browser

In my last blog post, I tried to keep an open mind and not be overly critical of some of the shortcomings of various web browsers. I even decided to give Opera another try, to see if I could set it up as a viable alternative to Firefox. One reason I like having a second browser available is so I can maintain two separate cookie profiles, and be logged into a website with two different accounts simultaneously.

I’d like to go on record and official tell everyone to stay the heck away from Opera. It simply doesn’t work.

In addition to the numerous bugs and crashing issues illustrated below, it’s not nearly as configurable as Firefox with extensions. If you use cookie managers, adblockers, or script blockers in Firefox, you will be extremely disappointed with Opera. It requires a great deal of effort to get Opera to even come close to some of the capabilities of FF with these addons, and even then, the result is far from optimal. Get used to lots of ads and annoying scripts if you plan of sticking with Opera.

Now, on the the main problems.

Previously, I had problems with MSNBC.com freezing up. Sure enough, checking on the Opera forums, several other users complained of the same problem. I mentioned this to a few friends and the response was simply “Well, it’s Microsoft - they probably did something so that it only works with Internet Explorer, so you have to use their browser.” I’m not buying this logic, and even if it’s true, you’d hope that the developers of browsers like Opera would figure out a workaround. MSNBC.com works just fine with Firefox by the way.

A major issue I had before was Google pages not loading. If I would try to navigate to a Google service that required a log in, the screen would flash a blank white repeatedly, and there would be some message in the status bar about trying to load the page. This would continue ad infinitum. No error message popped up, no warning of what was wrong or why the page couldn’t be loaded, just a hung-up browser with a blank screen. This happened on Google. Of all the websites out there that people may visit, I’d rank Google pretty high on the popularity list. If your browser can’t handle Google, it’s close to useless. I think the programmers working on Opera might want to try using Google in the future when they test out the latest builds of their product.

I think the problem was in the “only accept cookies from the sites I visit” setting, as I was eventually able to get Google to work. The issue is that there was no redirection to a page telling me cookies need to be enabled, or error message that popped up. If cookie permissions aren’t set properly in FF or IE, you usually get redirected to a page telling you what the problem is. Opera, unfortunately just hangs up and needs to be closed. Not an ideal way to deal with the problem.

Lastly, Opera completely crashes in a few instances. By crashing, I mean that the entire program and all other open windows become completely unresponsive. The only way to recover is to open up the task manager and close the application. This is completely unacceptable and should illustrate to anyone exactly why Opera should be avoided at all costs. For me this happened on at least two different web pages, including Myspace.com.

Web Browser Comparison

When it comes to web browsers, there certainly are plenty of options out there. Internet Explorer has two main versions seeing popular use, IE6 and IE7. Personally, I find IE6 to be a decent no-frills browser. IE7 by itself adds tabbed browsing, but implements it poorly. The default layout in IE7, like many of the latest Microsoft projects, is slightly different than past versions, which feels a bit odd to me. Without the customization of Firefox, IE7 just doesn’t cut it for me. Most addons available for IE7 are commercial, which in my case means I’ll never try them. There is one notable exception, IE7Pro - a freeware addon that adds a great deal of customizability and functionality to IE7, including a spellchecker a greasemonkey-like scripting interface, customizable tabbed browsing, adblocking and many others. If you are going to use IE7 as your main browser, you need this addon. It can be downloaded from http://www.ie7pro.com/

Firefox is the number one alternative to Internet Explorer. It is hands down the most customizable browser on the market if you consider the numerous addons available. The basic package is fairly customizable out of the box, but there are several addons that are practically indispensable. Just about any addon you can think of is out there. Some people complain that the latest version of Firefox is a system resource hog, but I personally don’t notice it on my 3 year old laptop. My informal tests show it to be just as fast as IE and others. If you are looking for an alternative to Internet Explorer, this is probably your best bet, and is my personal favorite.

The third most common browser in use is Opera. I want to like Opera, I really do, but there are a few niggling things that really get me. Firstly, for novice users it’s not necessarily intuitive to set up. I’ve got a very bright friend who loves the browser but even after using it for a few months still asks me how to configure certain settings. The folks at Opera claim that it’s the fastest of the major browsers, but I honestly can’t tell the difference. The layout of the browser is probably the most customizable of any out of the box, but Firefox can be further tweaked with various addons. I’ve run into a few bugs with Opera, such as extremely slow loading of MSNBC.com, and a hang-up when trying to go to any Google page (turned out to be due to cookie handling, but the fact that the page wouldn’t load at all even to give me an error was disturbing). Although these bugs are few and far between, they happened to me with two very popular web pages. I’m hesitant now to fully embrace the browser for all of my important business. The number of widgets or addons available for Opera is impressive, although a bit tricky to find exactly what you are looking for. I think Opera could be a viable alternative to IE, and worth a try, but the few bugs I’ve discovered make me suggest you take it for a test run before fully switching over.

Flock is a new browser that is based on the Gecko/Firefox engine. It is similar to Firefox in many ways, with a few notable changes. The focus of Flock is to integrate with various social networking websites. There is a friends sidebar which provides updates for your friends status. The browser nicely integrates with things like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and various blogging platforms. This blog post is being composed from Flock using the special blog editor function (which opens a window with various blogging tool buttons and options). Flock is fairly new and only time will tell if it takes off. Because of it’s Firefox origins, it seems to do the basics fairly well. If you use social networking sites and applications frequently, you should definitely check out Flock.

The last browser worth mentioning is K-meleon. It’s a stripped down, no frills browser based on the Mozilla/Gecko engine. There isn’t a whole lot to it, and there aren’t many addons or special features, but it may appeal to those with simple needs who are looking for a low-profile browser.