701246 - "Never remember history" activates private browsing mode without telling user

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Settings UI, defect)

Description

[Gavin Stokes]

Attachment: privacy.tiff

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.7; rv:8.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/8.0
Build ID: 20111104165243

Steps to reproduce:

Installed Firefox and activated "never remember history" under Privacy.


Actual results:

None of my log-in credentials were saved for any Web site (GMail, Hotmail, forums), even when I opted to save them.  After filing a bug on this behavior (and reviewing some potentially related ones), I discovered that "never remember history" turned private browsing mode on but didn't show any of the settings to the user.


Expected results:

The privacy settings on the Privacy tab should always be shown to the user, regardless of which mode he selects in the drop-down list.  Hiding them pointlessly obscures the options that are in effect and leads to a lot of wasted time, aggravation, and bug reports.

Bug 517383 is related.

Screen shot of the relevant settings attached.

Comment 1

[Gavin Stokes]

Also contradictory is the "remember passwords" option under Security, as noted in 503761.

Comment 2

[(no longer active)]

Limi, should we disable that option as well when the "never remember history" mode is in effect?  Or should we offer to remember passwords in permanent private browsing?

Comment 3

[[:Aleksej]]

Attachment: attachment 573379 converted to PNG

Comment 4

[Javi Rueda :javirid]

When selecting "Never remember history", a pop-up dialog shows notifying the user that the browser should be restarted in order to make that setting active.

Before closing the dialog, under the menu pop-up that has been used to set the preference it reads this label: http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/locales/en-US/chrome/browser/preferences/privacy.dtd#85, warning the user that the browser will behave as private mode was enabled.

Tested on Firefox 43.0.4, although the code reference on my link is about Nightly, so it hasn't changed probably since then.

Comment 5

[Gavin Stokes]

Thanks!  This is likely to be missed by the user because a dialog appears and demands attention just as the label text changes; but at least it provides a clue to the user later if he returns to this page, trying to determine what's going on with the browsing mode.

Much appreciated.

Comment 9

[Panos Astithas (he/him) [:past] (please ni?)]

There is more context in some of the duplicate bugs.

Comment 13

[Vadim]

There's a problem with addon/extension activation when switching to "Never remember history" mode (similar to complaint in #1557822)

Steps:

• Install addons in normal mode
• Enable "Never remember history" and restart Firefox
• None of the previously installed addons appear to be working (missing the "allow in private browsing" toggle)
• Install new addons, while in this mode
• You still get the popup for addons about "allow in private browsing"
• Ignore the popup and wonder why the newly installed addons arent working

Expected:
a) User asked about addons after restart, to manually allow if needed (UX-wise won't work)
or b) Private browsing toggle is ignored while in this mode, addons always enabled
z) New addons automatically be allowed in private browsing while this mode is enabled

Firefox 83.0a1 (2020-09-23)

Comment 14

[Yannis Juglaret [:yannis] | PTO back Oct 16]

Attachment: never-remember-history.png

A relative encountered this problem lately and had permanent browsing mode enabled without knowing, which impacted their browsing experience, making them unable to take medical appointments without using Edge for that purpose. I don't think this option should be called "Never remember history", it has so much more impact on browsing than just this. A text description was added to describe the option, but it only appears when clicking the option, and is never really shown as it gets immediately hidden by the restart popup that shows up when the option is clicked. This is far from ideal user experience.

Steps to reproduce:

• Go to Settings, Privacy & Security, History. Click Never remember history near Firefox will:.

What happens:

• The user is unable to read the description for this option as the restart popup covers it and triggers attention.
• The user is likely to just restart Firefox like suggested by the popup.
• The user is likely to enable permanent private browsing mode without being aware of it.

What should happen:

• The user experience should make the user conscious that this option enables permanent private browsing mode.

Comment 15

[Yannis Juglaret [:yannis] | PTO back Oct 16]

Attachment: doctolib.png

This is what Doctolib, the main (and only?) website for booking medical appointments in France looks like with Never remember history mode (permanent private browsing). It reads: "Doctolib isn't compatible with Firefox's private browsing mode. Please connect again with a compatible browser. Click here to view the list of compatible browsers." My relative was unable to relate this behavior to the privacy option they had selected. I had to fix it for them myself. Meanwhile they had to rely on Edge for medical appointments.

Comment 16

[Dutchgold75]

" never remember history" One would assume this would only effect browsing history and not lead to a disabling of extensions. It took me an age to figure this out. Maybe this setting needs a reword or a rework.