566010 - Remove the ability to create bookmarks while in private browsing mode

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Private Browsing, defect)

Description

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

While the user may intentionally want to create a bookmark while in private browsing mode, this in general goes against the overall theme of the mode not collecting any information about the user.

We previously drew this line at "do not ask the user to record data" (for instance we don't display the password manager notification bar).  However, I think the risk of a mode error is high enough that we should switch to "do not make it incredibly easy for the user to accidentally record data in the event that they forget what mode they are in."  The error case is that the user is looking at something they find interesting and out of pure habit they hit the star or control-D.

So we would need to remove:
star icon
bookmarks menu > bookmark this page
contextual menu on page > bookmark this page
contextual menu on link > bookmark this link
others?

Comment 1

[(no longer active)]

Is it something that the UX theme agrees that should be done for the next version of Firefox, or is it something that is currently being contemplated?

Another issue here is what to do at the API level.  We currently don't record any history events in places, should we do the same for bookmarks as well?

Comment 2

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

>Is it something that the UX theme agrees that should be done for the next
>version of Firefox

yeah, the team concurs that this is likely to create more problems than it solves so we should remove the ability.

Comment 3

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

(If anyone has changed their mind since we discussed this last week please comment)

Comment 4

[(no longer active)]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Another issue here is what to do at the API level.  We currently don't record
> any history events in places, should we do the same for bookmarks as well?

CCing Places gurus for feedback on this.

Comment 6

[(no longer active)]

I need to know if we really want this for Firefox 4.  If we do, the implementation shouldn't be that hard.

Comment 7

[Andreas Jung]

(In reply to comment #0)
> So we would need to remove:
> star icon
> bookmarks menu > bookmark this page
bookmarks menu > Bookmark All Tabs...
> contextual menu on page > bookmark this page
> contextual menu on link > bookmark this link
contextual menu on frame > This Frame > Bookmark This Frame
contextual menu on tab > Bookmark This Tab
contextual menu on tab > Bookmark All Tabs...

Comment 8

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Right now, Private Browsing has a simple heuristic: Remember explicit (and normally permanent) actions that the user initiates, and do not record/ask to record any other details.  This is meant to enforce principle of least surprise, in that if you choose to do something, we let you do it.  Other browsers (Chrome, IE8) follow the same logic and allow bookmarking in PB.  I'm not sure what heuristic this change implies.

Comment 0 makes an assertion which I think is wrong though, which is that remembering the data is "accidental" from the user end.  The user _wants_ to remember this specific page, whether they're in private browsing or not.  The presumption that this is an accidental action seems to be based on the general decision being an immutable blanket for all subsequent choices.  There are many reasons why a user might end up on a page they want to bookmark, even if they have PB active, and I really don't want to break that use case.

I really don't think we should consider this change at this point for Firefox 4, at least not without a broader discussion of the PB heuristic, and whether we want to draw a different line for what we will and won't persist.

Comment 9

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

It would work better if we were to make this change after allowing user switching with Sync accounts (so that users who wanted a private set of bookmarks would have a good mechanism for creating them).  Keeping things the same for 4 doesn't do any more harm than we are already doing.

Comment 10

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

I think you're dramatically overstating the "harm" of not trying to be smarter than the user here.  I think the user switching stuff is pretty much orthogonal to the core question, which is whether users do want to cross the PB line like this.  All browsers with PB seem to have converged on "yes" as the answer, so it seems like we have little to no reason to change this.

Comment 11

[(no longer active)]

Nominating to re-evaluate the blocking decision based on comment 9.  FWIW, I agree with mconnor's comment 8 and 10.

Comment 12

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

Not blocking on this: This is not a regression, and I agree that the harm in the current behavior is low due to the explicit nature of the actions taken by the user.

Comment 13

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

Sounds like this is WONTFIX, per previous comments.