484792 - plugins used in Private Browsing Mode retain history

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Web Compatibility :: Site Reports, defect)

Description

[Mike Beltzner [:beltzner, not reading bugmail]]

(See URL for an article outlining the problem.)

Basically what's happening is:

 - user enters Private Browsing mode
 - user watches a video (of, uhm, shopping?)
 - the video is handled by a streaming media plugin (let's say the embedded Windows Media Player)
 - the URL of that video is added to the history of that media player, system history, etc

This might be WONTFIX or INVALID, but I wanted to see if there was some way that we could either double-blind this information, not actually send the URL along with the stream (probably not) or signal to the player that they shouldn't be capturing that information. This will likely require investigation into their APIs, and potentially evangelism about our own APIs and signals so that they can behave properly.

Comment 1

[Nochum Sossonko [:Natch]]

We already send the private browsing notification to plugins since bug 468877, the plugins need to be updated, I don't think there's anything else Firefox can do aside from bug 468879.

Comment 2

[(no longer active)]

Yes, I agree with Nochum there.  I think we need to take bug 468879 for 1.9.1, and move this to the Evangelism component so that we can contact Microsoft (and possibly other vendors) about adding support for the new API to their plugins.

Mike, what do you think?

Comment 3

[Mike Beltzner [:beltzner, not reading bugmail]]

I'm fine with --> Tech Evangleism, sure. Bug 468879 is a little harsh, IMO, as it removes functionality in PB mode.

Comment 4

[Mike Beltzner [:beltzner, not reading bugmail]]

Adding dev-doc-needed, though really, that's more about bug 468877 I guess? Also adding Blizzard and Sheppy.

Comment 5

[(no longer active)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Adding dev-doc-needed, though really, that's more about bug 468877 I guess?

Bug 468877 is already documented on MDC, but I think we need a page dedicated to describing the problem here, and showing examples on how to handle it in the plugin code for plugin authors.

Comment 6

[Eric Shepherd [:sheppy]]

Do we have a code snippet I can borrow to show how this works?  I've got an initial page for this here:

https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Supporting_private_browsing_in_plugins

It's linked to from both the main plugins page and from the "Supporting private browsing mode" article.

Comment 7

[(no longer active)]

(In reply to comment #6)
> Do we have a code snippet I can borrow to show how this works?  I've got an
> initial page for this here:
> 
> https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Supporting_private_browsing_in_plugins
> 
> It's linked to from both the main plugins page and from the "Supporting private
> browsing mode" article.

Thanks for creating the article.  Josh can probably help with the code snippets.

Comment 8

[Karl Dubost💡 :karlcow]

Is it still valid?
Moving to Desktop Component.

Comment 9

[Hallvord R. M. Steen [:hallvors]]

Flash killed WMP for video, plugins in general are dying anyway, so I think we can close this.