You may already be aware of Ghost Browser, my apologies if so. However, I’ve lost count of the number of advanced users that I’ve met in the past month or so that haven’t seen it yet, but who would benefit significantly from its features, hence mentioning it here…
Put simply, Ghost Browser allows you to have multiple authenticated sessions open to the same site simultaneously, with each session having its own cookie jar, isolated from other sessions. This allows users such as web developers, testers, social media managers to easily work with multiple identities or use case perspectives without the need for multiple browsers, bookmarks, saved passwords etc.
What makes the app more powerful is the ability to have colour-coded projects – groups of sessions (with stored logins) so that daily workflows can be setup once, and then launched with one-click when they’re needed. Projects allow work to be focused and productive, and switching tasks is made more straightforward as you can always pick up right where you left off.
I regularly need to log into multiple social media accounts on the same network, customise sites and communities and test them as a non-admin user, build communities and content as different identities, use different affiliate IDs for similar transactions etc. All these tasks benefit from the Ghost Browser’s ability to have isolated sessions.
What takes it way beyond other browsers and plugins though are the Projects… I tend to work with as many as a dozen customer projects at a time, using different site identities depending on whether the relationship is direct or through a partner, and often needing to use as many as a dozen different personas when creating demos and populating content. The ability to setup and maintain sets of browser tabs that can be called up on-demand is a massive timesaver and really helps my productivity.
I’m currently trialling using Ghost Browser full time when on my Mac, but even if you’re not ready to switch from your default browser on a permanent basis, this is a super option to have installed for when you’re deep into a project and need the capabilities it offers.
Ghost Browser is a free download for Mac or Windows. A Linux version is coming soon.
