748530 - add preference for whether to show about:privatebrowsing page or about:newtab instead

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Private Browsing, enhancement)

Description

[Christian Ascheberg]

Now that there is ongoing work to make about:newtab work nicely in private browsing mode (bug 744388), it would be nice to have a preference to hide about:privatebrowsing and show about:newtab instead, as that page is more useful for experienced users.
Maybe that preference could be set through a checkbox on the about:privatebrowsing page.

Comment 1

[(no longer active)]

I think we should try to have fewer preferences not more.  I'm not sure if this is a good idea...

Comment 2

[Christian Ascheberg]

Attachment: patch

(In reply to Ehsan Akhgari [:ehsan] from comment #1)
> I think we should try to have fewer preferences not more.  I'm not sure if
> this is a good idea...

I don't know how bad it is to have more preferences. If you asked me, I'd say it's worth it...
I for myself got used to pressing Ctrl+Shift+P then instantly Ctrl+W (with browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab = false) to get rid of about:privatebrowsing.

possible patch attached...

Comment 3

[(no longer active)]

Comment on attachment 618046 [details] [diff] [review]
patch

Why are you falling back to about:blank instead of about:privatebrowsing?

Also, I'd like to get Gavin's feedback on this.

Comment 4

[Tim Taubert [:ttaubert] (inactive)]

(In reply to Christian Ascheberg from comment #2)
> I don't know how bad it is to have more preferences. If you asked me, I'd
> say it's worth it...

Introducing new preferences is definitely not free. You have to maintain them and (should) write tests for all possible combinations. We should only add one if we think it's a benefit for a majority of users.

> I for myself got used to pressing Ctrl+Shift+P then instantly Ctrl+W (with
> browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab = false) to get rid of
> about:privatebrowsing.

I do understand your workflow and that this can be really annoying but it's hard to imagine that this preference serves a real value to more than a handful of users. It shouldn't be too hard to write an extension that solves this issue for you.

Comment 5

[(no longer active)]

FWIW, the best way to do this to an extension is to add an about redirector which redirects about:privatebrowsing to the new tab URI.

Comment 6

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

Comment on attachment 618046 [details] [diff] [review]
patch

I think there's not enough demand to add this kind of pref.

Comment 7

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

We can of course revisit what the default behavior should be, though, so if you have suggestions about that, feel free to open a new bug.