461221 - Should we clear the DNS cache when leaving the private browsing mode?

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Private Browsing, defect, P4)

Description

[(no longer active)]

See shaver's comments on <https://wiki.mozilla.org/Talk:Firefox3.1/PrivateBrowsing/FunctionalSpec>.  Actually I think this would be another good thing to handle in the private browsing mode, though I'm not sure if this can be taken in the Firefox 3.1 timeframe, so I'm filing a bug in order to centralize the discussion over this here.

Comment 1

[(no longer active)]

Any thoughts on this?

Comment 2

[James May [:fowl2]]

Clearing the system DNS cache, on Windows at least, requires admin privileges. It's box wide and not specific to a user, afaik. It's also trival to view without those privs.. ipconfig /displaydns that's probably a OS oversight.

Firefox's internal DNS cache is a different story. There are no tools available as far as I know at the moment to view it, but it's not outside the realm of possibility. Some reports on the web say that "cache" in Clear Private Data clears the internal DNS cache, is this true?

Comment 3

[(no longer active)]

Mass moving of all Firefox::General private browsing bugs to Firefox::Private Browsing.

Comment 4

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Hard, not a huge priority right now.

Comment 5

[Justin Dolske [:Dolske]]

Saw this issue mentioned in http://lifehacker.com/5395267/how-to-really-browse-without-leaving-a-trace

Comment 6

[Mike Shaver (:shaver emeritus)]

We should ship our own resolver, would make solving this (and a ton of other stuff) a lot easier!

Comment 7

[(no longer active)]

(In reply to comment #6)
> We should ship our own resolver, would make solving this (and a ton of other
> stuff) a lot easier!

Is there any bug on file for that?

Comment 8

[Martin d'Allens]

(In reply to comment #6)
> We should ship our own resolver, would make solving this (and a ton of other
> stuff) a lot easier!

I second that, the way private browsing currently handles the cache (by not handling it) clearly misleads users. You could extend this remark to Flash's Shared Objects as pointed at http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2009/11/how-to-really-browse-without-leaving-a-trace/ but it's probably not Firefox's responsibilty.