1009194 - Warn users when add-on has not opted into Private Browsing

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Add-on SDK Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[yan]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:29.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/29.0 (Beta/Release)
Build ID: 20140506152807

Steps to reproduce:

Release a Jetpack addon that does not opt into Private Browsing mode: https://github.com/EFForg/privacybadgerfirefox


Actual results:

The most-commonly reported bug was, "This addon doesn't work for me at all; no icon shows up." It turns out that almost all of these users had turned on "Always use Private Browsing" or "Never remember history." 


Expected results:

If an add-on has not opted into Private Browsing, perhaps users should see a notification telling them that the add-on is inactive, either when they install it (if they have Private Browsing on by default) or the first time they open a Private Browsing window.

In my experience, users assume that addons should be active in Private Browsing by default, which leads to unpleasant comments like this one: https://github.com/EFForg/privacybadgerfirefox/issues/57#issuecomment-42574614

Comment 1

[Tomislav Jovanovic :zombie]

i don't think this is really an SDK bug.. possibly it's Toolkit/AOM, but i doubt they would/could do anything about it.

if you are an author of an addon that doesn't work in private browsing mode, i believe you can detect that the permanent PB mode is on, and display a warning to the user yourself upon install/on first run..

Comment 2

[Tomislav Jovanovic :zombie]

let me try to explain that better:

i believe this is a WONTFIX bug, because it is not true that every addon that doesn't opt-in into PB mode is useless in PB mode, and we don't want to bother all users users with a message like this _by default_.

only you, as the addon author, know if your addon is totally useless with permanent PB mode, and it is thus your choice to do something about it, namely to notify the user if you think she should know about that.

Comment 3

[Matteo Ferretti [:zer0] [:matteo]]

Where I agree with zombie, I can see the point of the request of yan. In my opinion we should:

1. Cover the topic by Add-on SDK documentation, maybe adding a tutorial that helps the developers to deal with PB – and also give a "suggested" way to notify the user, in order to reduce the proliferation of several UX about that.

2. File a bug to provide a better description when a Private Window is opened.
Here our current text:

> Private Browsing
> ----------------
> Nightly won't remember any history for this window.
> In a Private Browsing window, Nightly won't keep any 
> browser history, search history, download history, web 
> form history, cookies, or temporary internet files.
> However, files you download and bookmarks you make will be kept.

> To stop Private Browsing, you can close this window.

> While this computer won't have a record of your browsing history,
> your internet service provider or employer can still track the pages you visit. 

There is no mention to extensions at all, I think it should be written that some extensions could not work in Private Browsing to protect the privacy of the user, or something like that.

3. With the Native Jetpack, we could probably provide a better UX when the user opens about:addons, to at least identify SDK extensions that have limited capabilities in PB. I don't think it's only our call here, we should probably involve the UX to check if it makes sense for them, especially considering that we can do that only for add-ons made using the SDK.