Extension is not disabled by default in Firefox Private mode

[0x49D1]

Open Firefox (in Chrome by default extensions are disabled in private mode) with installed extension and go to private mode. The extension is still enabled and tracks everything. The expected behavior is that the extension is disabled by default in private mode. In case I need tracking - there must be option to enable during private mode too.

[blackforestboi]

Thanks for sending this in. I just had a quick search and yeah, it seems as if FF does not disable extension in private mode by default. We could add this, should be fairly simple. Unfortunately, I can't give an ETA at the moment, as so many other things are important right now. Will add it as a newcomer task, so maybe someone drops by and picks it up :)

Workaround:

We added a new feature to pause your indexing for a certain amount of time, you could do that as long as you are browsing for something you don't want to leave your traces.

[0x49D1]

as so many other things are important right now

glad to hear 👍 Pausing is kinda OK, but not that friendly. The extension has information about all the content, even if it doesn't send the information anywhere - someone else can start to haunt for its database... By the way is there any encryption when saving data? We are just humans and I can forget to disable tracking for some domains, so that some sensitive content will be saved in that database that is not clearing automatically after some periods (like, for example, browser cache).

[blackforestboi]

Pausing is kinda OK, but not that friendly.

Yeah agree :/

The extension has information about all the content

When pausing the indexing or blacklisting a page, it blocks all the processing alltogether. So it will never even process the page data. And in case of blacklisting, the only information the extension gets is the url to check, which it immediately forgets again.

By the way is there any encryption when saving data?

Not yet. I agree this would make the use case you are talking about easier. It also could complicate some things though. Probably will be an optional feature that people could enable if they want. We do have this feature on our map, even though not with the highest priority at the moment.

For now, people can make use of our "blacklist & delete" feature, that allows users to delete all the past occurences of the domains/pages they blacklist via the popup.

[nileshgulia1]

Hello @0x49D1 @oliversauter ,I want to know more about this issue .When opening firefox in safe mode firefox -safe-mode all extensions are disabled by default ,but opening firefox in private mode none of the extensions are disabled .This seems to happen with the Memex extension also, then what is the issue about?

[0x49D1]

@nileshgulia1 the problem is with Firefox's way of how private mode works: they are not disabling extensions (like Chrome does), just erasing browsing history. Memex is local extension, so you are in control of what is recorded and can set filters/erase history afterwards, but overall I don't think this is OK from Firefox's side.

[nileshgulia1]

but overall I don't think this is OK from Firefox's side

Then should the corresponding issue is to be made in the firefox repo? as the problem is with firefox ,why changes are required to be made to the extension as it is behaving like all the extensions in firefox?

[0x49D1]

@nileshgulia1 sure there is already such suggestion in Firefox's issue tracker, for example: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=822675

[blackforestboi]

thanks @0x49D1 @nileshgulia1 for discussing this out :) Indeed at the moment, we cannot do much to solve that issue, as it is FF standard. At least we can't do much without spending time on it, which as mentioned is not a priority at the moment.

I'd close this issue for now, and bring it up again, once we have the time to solve this problem.