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Lusito / forget-me-not

Make the browser forget website data, except for the data you want to keep.
zlib License
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cookies from unloaded tabs not cleared on startup if "Apply Rules" is checked #83

Open practik opened 6 years ago

practik commented 6 years ago

Steps to reproduce:

  1. In FMN Settings, under "Clean on browser start," check "Cookies" and "Apply Rules."
  2. In about:preferences#general, under "Startup," check "Restore previous session." Keep this tab open.
  3. Open a couple of tabs from sites that set cookies, and check to see that cookies have actually been set for those domains. Keep their tabs open as well.
  4. Navigate back to about:preferences so that it's the active tab.
  5. Close and restart browser. Only the about:preferences tab should be loaded; the others should not.
  6. Check cookies again.

Expected behavior: The cookies from the unloaded tabs should have been cleared.

Actual behavior: The cookies from the unloaded tabs are still there.

Notes: I've been using Cookie AutoDelete, which does clear cookies from unloaded tabs on startup, so maybe that's why my expectations are what they are. But C-AD's behavior does seem more logical to me: When you close the browser, you close the tab, so its cookies should be deleted.

I've also found that FMN will clear cookies from unloaded tabs on startup if you uncheck the relevant "Apply Rules" box – but then FMN disregards all rules, so for example your whitelisted cookies get cleared as well. I would normally assume that "Apply Rules" refers only to user-defined rules, not to open tabs.

I'm also aware of #54, but that seems to be only/mainly about tabs that are unloaded while the browser is running. I agree with your comment there that cookies from such tabs should be kept. But startup seems like a different situation to me.

(FMN 1.0.2 on FF 61.0.2)

Lusito commented 6 years ago

Expected behavior in FMN is that cookies don't get cleared for tabs that are still open. unloaded or not should not matter. Maybe there could be an option for users who expect them to be cleared, as it seems some seem to want this. I personally don't want to get logged out of things that are still open.

practik commented 6 years ago

My unloaded tabs have nothing to do with logins; they're mainly reminders for things I want to read/research. So maybe my problem is not so much an FMN problem as it is a practik's time/tab management problem ;-)

But here's another thought: If you do decide to make this an option for those who want it, there's a simple* way to do that: Make it the default behavior. Then, if you want to protect cookies in unloaded tabs on startup – to keep a login active or for any other reason – all you have to do is whitelist them.

* Conceptually simple, that is – I'm not a webextension developer, so I have no idea whether it would be easy to implement or not; please forgive me if this is an annoying suggestion for you, the one who would actually have to do the work.

c-tamias35 commented 5 years ago

I've been using Cookie AutoDelete, and now Self-Destructing Cookies (WebEx) because cookies related to closed tabs are cleared immediately when those tabs are closed and there's no other instance of those domains in remaining tabs. It avoid tracking cookies to track any further, and it comforts people with privacy concerns. Although, these extensions have a switch to only delete cookies on the browser startup/exit too. So +1 for having such feature in FMN.