1773288 - "Clear cookies and site data" in private mode only clears regular browsing data

Status: NEW

(Toolkit :: Data Sanitization, defect, P3)

Description

[Petru-Mugurel Lingurar [:petru]]

This is a ticket broken off from https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1765314 which was reported for Fenix.

But when testing that I saw that the feature for the following scenario:

• standard ETP
• login to a website while in private mode
• tap the lock icon in the url bar
• tap "Clear cookies and site data"
• refresh the page or
• open a new tab for the same website

is broken since the first implementation in Fenix (which calls https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/7e34cb7a0094a2f325a0c9db720cec0a2f2aca4f/mobile/android/geckoview/src/main/java/org/mozilla/geckoview/StorageController.java#119) and is also currently broken in Firefox desktop (MacOS).

Comment 1

[Tim Huang[:timhuang]]

Paul, would you be able to take a look?

Comment 2

[Ionut Bedregeanu]

Seems to be the same issue as on: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-android/issues/2951

Comment 3

[Emma Zühlcke [:emz]]

I don't think this is a regression. We've had this behavior since the feature was introduced in Bug 1462469.
The reason is that private browsing has a separate storage bucket which isn't touched by this data clearing feature. We have two options here, we can either update the clearing code to support clearing PBM data when called from PBM windows, or we can hide the button in private browsing mode.

I don't know off-hand how difficult it is to do data clearing in PBM mid-session. On the desktop side the SiteDataManager would need to be updated to target a specific (non 0) privateBrowsingId. The clear data button calls this method: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/cc98a15c7327d742d283cddddde712a8a3165006/browser/modules/SiteDataManager.jsm#501
We'd also need to check if the ClearDataService supports clearing Private Browsing Mode data.

If we want to hide it, here is the code that determines visibility: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/cc98a15c7327d742d283cddddde712a8a3165006/browser/base/content/browser-siteIdentity.js#917-927 We can add a simple PBM check there.

Comment 6

[Albert Scheiner [:alberts]]

This looks like a dub of bug 1754172 - although there is more going here. Still close it as dub and reference the conversation from here over in the other ticket?