Private window broken in active profile on Firefox Nightly
I’ve noticed something strange with the active profile in my Firefox Nightly, private browsing doesn’t seem to be working as expected. . Two things made me suspect something’s wrong
* I wanted to compare a site’s logged-in and logged-out views, so I opened it in a private window. However, it still showed me as logged in
- This led to a second finding: private windows render identically to normal windows, with no private-browsing indicators.
Tested with a fresh profile: private browsing behaves correctly, which isolates the issue to my active profile. I was wondering if any one has encounter this issue and whether there's a fix for it
All Replies (6)
Gekose oplossing
There are two ways to start Firefox in "automatic" or "permanent" private browsing. One is an internal preference and the other is a startup switch in the shortcut. It's worth checking both:
(1) Internal preference
Under Settings > Privacy and security > History
if Customize History is set, click "Choose what you want Firefox to remember" and look for "Always use private browsing mode"
Or in about:config, look for the corresponding browser.privatebrowsing.autostart preference.
Checking the box sets that preference to true, causing Firefox to always start in private mode, with the stealth appearance of a normal session.
(2) Startup switch
Right-click your shortcut and then click Properties. If it's on the taskbar, there is an extra step: right-click the taskbar button, then right-click Firefox [or Nightly, if applicable] then click Properties.
Windows should default to the Shortcut tab but, if it doesn't, select the Shortcut tab.
Check the contents of the Target field. Normally there are not parameters after the path:
"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"
But if you see anything referring to "-private" that could be the culprit.
Gewysig op deur jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
(1) Internal preference Under Settings > Privacy and security > History if Customize History is set, click "Choose what you want Firefox to remember" and look for "Always use private browsing mode"
There's also the sibling "Never remember history" that does the same when checked.
Thanks for your insight, it fixed the problem. The cause in the internal preference; "Always use private browsing mode " was marked in the History settings. I was surprised to find it on, but then again I may have toggled it on at some point
jbr said
(1) Internal preference There's also the sibling "Never remember history" that does the same when checked.Now I remember, this might have been the case where I specifically selected "never remember history". Would this be considered as a bug or it is it part of a feature that I'm not aware of.
I just feel with each iteration of the updates, settings page has become increasingly nested, way too many tabs
Gewysig op deur Rastapopoulos1
Rastapopoulos1 said
I just feel with each iteration of the updates, settings page has become increasingly nested, way too many tabs
This swings back and forth. The major simplification many years ago led to a lot of complaints about hiding settings from users.
I find myself using that little search bar more often rather than trying to remember where things are. On the other hand, if you don't know the names of the settings you are looking for, you may not find them that way.
You're right there's things to flip that duplicate some behavior. But that's merely to accommodate users potentially setting an "old" preference, to be able to find it again, even when it moved somewhere else or was called something else before. So yes, this perma–PBM can be enabled from several places, called differently, mostly for convenience, as it makes sense in multiple places. (And the user–facing label has been called several different strings over time.) — There's usually bugs already filed for simplification once enough time passes, so there's only one place to set that.
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