back to article Firefox: Use new stealth window to satisfy your wife, suggests Mozilla

Porn-lovers and prezzie shoppers alike are celebrating today after Mozilla announced the release of the privacy-minded version 20 of Firefox. According to the Mozilla blog, the new iteration of the browser allows users to launch a private browsing window whilst keeping other sessions open. "You can shop for a birthday gift in …

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  1. DF118
    Thumb Up

    "those keen to secretly splash some money"

    I see what you did there. Chapeau.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Really?

    Only now got per-tab private browsing? Opera's had that for about 8 years...

    Great when I am "prezzie shopping"...

    1. Ian Yates

      Re: Really?

      From someone who isn't a Firefox user, is this story true? Seems like a glaring omission to have been lacking this feature for so long...

      1. Greg J Preece

        Re: Really?

        While I was waiting for the inevitable Opera fanboys, yes, it was a rather annoying side effect of Firefox's private browsing - it placed all your current tabs in the background and made a new private session. When you exited, your previous tabs popped back into place. It worked, but it was kinda irritating that you couldn't have both. Nice that they've gotten around to sorting it.

        A new download manager sounds excellent, too. Why on earth they decided to have the old one as a popup window (that liked to play disappearing games and hide under a different shortcut on every platform) is beyond me. Perhaps once it drops into the Ubuntu repositories I can uninstall the Download In Tabs add-on I've been using for years.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Really?

          "hide under a different shortcut on every platform"

          How hard is it to remember Ctrl + J for Windows and Cmd + J for Mac? I don't use it under Linux, but I can't imagine the shortcut is very different, if at all.

          1. Greg J Preece

            Re: Really?

            How hard is it to remember Ctrl + J for Windows and Cmd + J for Mac? I don't use it under Linux, but I can't imagine the shortcut is very different, if at all.

            On Linux, it's CTRL+SHIFT+Y. You were saying?

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Really?

              "On Linux, it's CTRL+SHIFT+Y. You were saying?"

              Fair enough, that is pretty damn random.

              1. Jolyon Smith
                Facepalm

                Re: Really?

                Where-as "<any modifier> + J" is glaringly obvious ? Just asking.

              2. regorama
                WTF?

                Re: Really?

                Ctrl+Shift+P does it on Linux.

          2. Thecowking

            Re: Really?

            ctrl+shift+y on Linux.

            Yes, it's annoying as hell.

            1. Jo 5
              Windows

              Re: Really?

              When I require private prezzie shopping sessions i dont normally have both hands free...

      2. RISC OS

        Re: Really?

        Glaring eh? I've been using FF since version 3 and have never ahd need of this glaring ommission... obviously not important, and that's why it wasn't done before.

        1. Steve Knox
          Mushroom

          Re: Really?

          Glaring eh? I've been using FF since version 3 and have never ahd need of this glaring ommission... obviously not important, and that's why it wasn't done before.

          See, everyone? RISC OS didn't need this, so it was obviously a wasted effort. I don't know how many times I've told Mozilla to stop faffing about with this "community" crap, and just ask RISC OS what to do...

    2. Lee D Silver badge

      Re: Really?

      I don't get how people DON'T have this functionality already. Been using Opera for years and it's had this forever (but then, that's true of just about every Firefox announcement in the last year that spouted some feature). I can have new private tabs or new private windows and mix and match as I see fit.

      Great for testing site-logins (bring up private tab and you KNOW there's no cookies, remembered passwords etc.), when the girlfriend wants to check her email on my browser (no, I don't want to sign out, sign her in, sign her out, sign me back in again), etc.

      Just because you HAVEN'T used it yet, doesn't mean you wouldn't use it everyday if you'd had it, either. Hell Firefox 3 didn't have a hell of a lot of things that the latest versions have - would you be willing to go back to version 3 functionality but with the latest security updates? I'd guess not.

      Opera's great. And it's had this stuff for YEARS. And I get tired of the "Look at us, we have feature X!" announcements for new versions of other browsers that were beaten by another browser by years. It's like when IE got tabbed browsing and all the FF guys laughed.... guess what? We had it before either of you, and all those other features you like to shout off about.

      And if you don't understand why someone would use Opera - it's precisely because you didn't realise it's had all these features for YEARS and we found them back then. It's not the sort of thing you realise if you only tried Opera once back in the days of it being pay-for or having an advert banner, and even then some features we had back then have only been replicated relatively recently.

      (And people will stop spouting about Opera when you have something new and interesting and it's not either a - in Opera already, or b - in the next latest stable anyway).

      1. Greg J Preece

        Re: Really?

        It's not the sort of thing you realise if you only tried Opera once back in the days of it being pay-for or having an advert banner, and even then some features we had back then have only been replicated relatively recently

        This is going to astonish you, but it's possible to have used Opera and still not prefer it. No, really. No, honestly, I swear this is a thing.

        Not every feature in Firefox/Chome/whatever is in Opera, and not every feature that they share is done better in Opera.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Really?

          " not every feature that they share is done better in Opera."

          99% of the time it's better in Opera. The only people that couldn't possibly like Opera are those too closed minded to try it, or too brainwashed into thinking OpenSource is the only way..

          1. Anonymous Coward
            FAIL

            Re: Really?

            "99% of the time it's better in Opera. The only people that couldn't possibly like Opera are those too closed minded to try it"

            or those behind a proxy that want to use wildcard exceptions. Yes this fucking shitty bug that's been around for years (well it was a few months ago at which point I've given up trying to use it). Seemed they could never be arsed to fix it, so not fit for a lot of corporate use.

            http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=1009412&t=1309883396&page=1#comment9827572

            1. Rafael L
              FAIL

              Re: Really?

              YEAH you're like 100% of internet population... Using a proxy with wildcards!

        2. Gerhard den Hollander

          Re: Really?

          Same here. Working mainly on Linux, I usually have 3 different browsers open (Opera, Firefox and chrome) sometimes including konqueror/rekonq/whatever.

          Of those 3/4 I find that I tend to use opera least, simply because it doesnt fo what I want it to, or at least not in the way I expect it to.

          Nothing serious, but sometimes it's just slower, sometimes it's just annoying and sometimes it's just crap.

          And sometimes it does things to a webpage that none of the other browsers do

          Still it has it's uses, so i keep using it, but if I had to stop using any one of those 3, the obvious choice would be opera.

  3. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Why this is good

    Keep your e-mail open in the private window and do the rest of your browsing in the normal window and put a stop to XSS/cookie stealing/webmail hijacking shenanigans.

    1. Steve Knox
      Meh

      Re: Why this is good

      Yeah.... That'll put an end to all that. Sure it will.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Why this is good

      "..and put a stop to XSS/cookie stealing/webmail hijacking shenanigans."

      except, of course, those that target your mail account. It is important to always remember that complete security and privacy are impossible.

    3. spencer

      Re: Why this is good

      ...or put facebook there and not have to worry about all sites recording where you've been and reporting back to the facebook hive-mind.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Why this is good

        ... or put quidco there so when you follow a link from there there should be no other cookies around to stop the purchase tracking ... at least that's what's meant to happen though in my experience doesn't.

    4. ScissorHands
      FAIL

      Re: Why this is good

      Except, of course, using a damn e-mail client.

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge
        Boffin

        Re: Why this is good

        I do download everything into Thunderbird at home. Understandably I don't at work.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    more importantly, is it available for blackberry

    as apparently some poor sods on BB10 are showing all their privates to the public !

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    At last

    The other browsers have had this for yonks (IE8 anyone) so it's nice that FF had finally caught up.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Permanent perv mode

    I've run Firefox in permanent stealth mode for a while now.

    1) Type about:config into the address bar

    2) Type "private" into the search bar and set the browser.privatebrowsing.autostart parameter to true.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Windows

    Well done mozilla

    Now how about pulling your finger out of your ass and deliver 64bit Firefox for Windows

    1. Zebo-the-Fat

      Re: Well done mozilla

      Try Cyberfox 64 bit FF... works great for me!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Well done mozilla

        I use Palemoon myself for Windows 64bit, but given that 64bit Windows is really the de-facto, major software distributions should offer true 64bit versions IMHO. Given that we have had x86-64 for nearly a decade this is getting a joke, the 64bit situation is far better in the Linux world.

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. mickey mouse the fith

      Re: Well done mozilla

      I tried the waterfox 64bit build for a while, Trouble was, The author wasnt too quick pushing out updates, and the very slight performance increases wernt worth the security risk of a browser a month or so behind the current release.

  8. Richard Wharram

    Buying a gift for the wife

    That old chestnut again?

    Yes dear...

    And they are there because I've got a cold.

    Those on the floor? Yes, I've blown my nose twice already...

    And my belt is broken too...

  9. Russ Tarbox
    Thumb Up

    Well done on catching up with Chrome!

    Which is only around 4 years old ...

    1. Killraven

      Re: Well done on catching up with Chrome!

      When Chrome lets me put my tabs below the address bar, and finally manages to properly import all of my Firefox bookmarks, then I'll start caring about what other features it offers.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Well done on catching up with Chrome!

        Other features: maximized memory usage

    2. Tank boy
      Pint

      Re: Well done on catching up with Chrome!

      I was thinking the same along the same lines. There's this fantastic little tab on the thingy that allows people to surf the interwebs 'incognito', and lo and behold, there's actually a keyboard shortcut (shidt+cntl+n). Imagine that?

  10. 404

    Still miss the Netscape N

    Back in 94 I paid for Netscape - yup paid for it - something about the mystique or symbolism of the N, sitting on a planet, w/meteors coming down.

    Just cool.

    1. Lewis R
      Thumb Up

      Re: Still miss the Netscape N

      I have the N throbber installed in SeaMonkey and Firefox... If you visit my FTP server and browse down from ftp://ftp.2rosenthals.com/pub/Mozilla to the Netscape directory (I have purposely avoided the direct link, as I believe that AOL probably still owns the rights to the N logo artwork <ahem>), you will find a couple of packages there to suit your fancy.

      1. 404

        Re: Still miss the Netscape N

        Retrieved - Thank you, sir!

        Did look around a bit, hope you don't mind.

        Thanks again!

  11. Crazy Operations Guy

    The easier way to get Privacy

    Just set up an account for everyone that uses the machine. Simple, effective and limits the 'preference wars' when sharing a computer.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Re: The easier way to get Privacy

      All you end up with is one account who's password is written on a scrap of paper which is taped to the monitor.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mozilla invents system to help users used to single user system.

    Yawn. How is this useful? More bloat because unwashed masses grew up on Windows95? Sure looks like it to me. I need to go outside and look the trees for moment.

    1. Jo 5

      Re: Mozilla invents system to help users used to single user system.

      We know its you ComicBookGuy. No anoninimoty here or however you spell it! Get back to trollin the dailymail.com pls

  13. regorama
    Stop

    "You can also use a private browsing window to check multiple email accounts simultaneously."

    Yeah, you could, but all of the private browsing windows will have access to the same cookies. Try it: http://cookiedemo.com/

    So you can't use it to login to multiple Facebook/gmail/whatever accounts.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why do they bother calling it "private browsing"

    Everyone knows it as "Porn mode"

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