885108 - SimplePush: Support private browsing mode

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Core :: DOM: Push Subscriptions, defect)

Description

[Nikhil Marathe [:nsm] (No longer reading bugmail, please needinfo?)]

The PushService was originally written for B2G, which has no notion of Private Browsing.

On desktop, there is only one instance of the service running application wide, which means the same database is shared for normal and private browsing windows, which is obviously wrong.

To prevent data leak, the patches in 857464 explicitly disable the use of navigator.push in tabs that are in a private browsing window. While this solves the privacy problem it would be nice if the PushService used a separate DB and push could be enabled for private browsing windows too.

This would also require stricter regulations on the eventpages/workers/tabs which would be launched on push. They'd have to run in a private browsing window, and must be unloaded when all private browsing windows are closed.

At this point there aren't enough cases to implement this, but it may be useful in the future.

Comment 1

[(no longer active)]

So with the current implementation, do push notifications simply not work in private tabs?

Comment 2

[Nikhil Marathe [:nsm] (No longer reading bugmail, please needinfo?)]

(In reply to :Ehsan Akhgari (needinfo? me!) from comment #1)
> So with the current implementation, do push notifications simply not work in
> private tabs?

Yes, they don't work.

Comment 3

[(no longer active)]

(In reply to comment #2)
> (In reply to :Ehsan Akhgari (needinfo? me!) from comment #1)
> > So with the current implementation, do push notifications simply not work in
> > private tabs?
> 
> Yes, they don't work.

OK, that's fine for now I guess.

Comment 4

[Andrew Overholt [:overholt]]

Do we need to do something for the standard Push API in private browsing mode?

Comment 5

[Lina Butler [:lina]]

Probably. This Etherpad notes Push is disabled in private browsing mode: https://etherpad.mozilla.org/webpush-desktop-checklist...except I can't find anything confirming that in the code.

For now, we should probably just reject push subscription attempts with `PermissionDeniedError` in private browsing mode.

Comment 6

[Lina Butler [:lina]]

It looks like we're hiding `navigator.serviceWorker` in private browsing mode, so you can't even register to receive push notifications.