Open Bug 1746723 Opened 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago

Clean up "delete on exit" settings

Categories

(Toolkit :: Data Sanitization, enhancement, P3)

Product:
Toolkit
Component:
Data Sanitization
Version:
Firefox 95
Type:
enhancement

Tracking

()

People

(Reporter: fcr_fcr, Unassigned)

References

Details

Steps to reproduce:

There are various settings relating to what happens when you close Firefox and re-open. Namely:

  1. In Privacy & Security -> Cookies and Site Data -> Checkbox for "Delete cookies and site data when Firefox is closed" where you can also set exceptions for sites whose cookies you like to keep across sessions.
  2. Also in Privacy & Security -> History -> Checkbox for "Clear history when Firefox closes" with further settings where you select which items should be deleted. This does not only include history items (e.g. browsing, search and download history) but AGAIN includes cookies, site data, cache and so on.

Not sure what the difference is between telling Firefox to delete cookies in the first and second setting, or what happens when you have different settings in the first and second place.

Furthermore,
3. General -> Startup -> "Open previous windows and tabs" does not work when history is set to be cleared at exit (Firefox for Android has a separate checkbox for Open Tabs, Edge/Vivaldi reload the last session even when history is getting deleted otherwise)

Actual results:

These settings all relate to the same thing - what happens when I close Firefox and restart. But they are confusing, contradictory, and scattered across the settings.

Expected results:

Have one new sub-group of settings, say in Privacy & Security, which is something like this:

Delete data when Firefox closes:
[X] Browsing history (here we should have a warning that if Firefox is set to restore the last session on startup, those items will not be deleted from the history, and Firefox behaviour should be that the session is still restored even when the user wishes to delete the browser history at exit)
[X] Search and form history
[X] Download history
[X] Active logins
[X] Cookies (here we should have a button to manage exceptions)
[X] Cache
[X] Offline website data
[X] Site settings

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Toolkit::Data Sanitization' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please revert this change in case you think the bot is wrong.

Component: Untriaged → Data Sanitization
Product: Firefox → Toolkit

Thanks for filing a bug!
We're currently working on removing the cookie lifetime policy feature, see Bug 1681493. This is the feature behind the checkbox you mentioned (1).
If possible we would like to remove the checkbox and migrate users to the sanitize-on-shutdown functionality (2). Cookie lifetime policy clears a subset of the categories in sanitize-on-shutdown.

Severity: -- → N/A
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Depends on: 1681493
Ever confirmed: true
Priority: -- → P3

Hi All, Firefox 102 users are confused by the migration code clearing the checkbox for "Delete cookies and site data when Firefox is closed". This is causing them to re-check the box repeatedly. For example:

Since the underlying preference is being removed in bug 1764761 (where I'm mentioning this as well), it seems urgent to sort out what to do with that checkbox (https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/components/preferences/privacy.inc.xhtml#369).

Perhaps there should be a "link" to "Clear history when Firefox closes" or to a SUMO KB article to help users find the new way? I think it's important that users do not get the impression that the ability to clear cookies and site data at shut down has been taken away from them.

Is that in scope for this bug?

Paul, thank you for informing me of bug 1681495, which addresses my concern about the "Delete cookies and site data when Firefox is closed" checkbox. Looks good in Developer Edition (103.0b2).

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