[tor-bugs] Re: #1515 [Tor - Torbutton]: Torbutton shold enable firefox's "Private Browsing Mode"

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#1515: Torbutton shold enable firefox's "Private Browsing Mode"
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 Reporter:  mikeperry        |       Owner:     
     Type:  enhancement      |      Status:  new
 Priority:  major            |   Milestone:     
Component:  Tor - Torbutton  |     Version:     
 Keywords:                   |      Parent:     
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Old description:

> We need to integrate with Firefox's Private Browsing Mode. A lot of
> people suggest to me that we should turn Tor on whenever Private Browsing
> is enabled. I think this is the wrong way to go -- but we should turn on
> PMB when we get enabled. This is useful for us primarily because enabling
> PMB will tell other addons that they also need to be private.
>
> However, doing so will require some gymnastics to preserve Torbutton
> features. See:
> https://gitweb.torproject.org/torbutton.git/blob_plain/HEAD:/website/design/FF35_AUDIT

New description:

 We need to integrate with Firefox's Private Browsing Mode. A lot of people
 suggest to me that we should turn Tor on whenever Private Browsing is
 enabled. I think this is the wrong way to go -- but we should turn on PBM
 when we get enabled. This is useful for us primarily because enabling PBM
 will tell other addons that they also need to be private.

 However, doing so will require some gymnastics to preserve Torbutton
 features. See:
 https://gitweb.torproject.org/torbutton.git/blob_plain/HEAD:/website/design/FF35_AUDIT

--

Comment(by mikeperry):

 After some consideration, I think the best way to do this is to provide
 two options. One option should be "Enter Private Browsing Mode when Tor is
 enabled", and should disable the ability to set all the options relevant
 to things that Firefox already sets. This should be off by default.

 The other option should be "Inform other addons that we are entering into
 a private mode", and should enumerate all observers that listen for the
 "private-browsing" and related observer events, and send the ones not
 owned by Firefox the event. We should also possibly wrap the private
 browsing service and provide fake values for its "privateBrowsingEnabled"
 boolean. This would serve the purpose of telling other addons to behave
 and not leak private data. However, wrapping that boolean may cause
 unknown side-effects in Firefox. Another Firefox code review would be
 required.

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/1515#comment:3>
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