13 ms·

I'm going to have to try this to see if Firefox's privacy is better. I currently use Chrome on iOS and was very disappointed to discover that it remembers Googl

by biot 11y ago

I'm going to have to try this to see if Firefox's privacy is better. I currently use Chrome on iOS and was very disappointed to discover that it remembers Google searches that you do within incognito mode, completely breaking all expectations on what incognito is for. Apparently this is a two year old bug: http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/3/4797968/chrome-for-ios-incognito-mode-not-private-bug http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/3/4797968/chrome-for-ios-inc... Long story short, Google saves all searches in HTML5 local storage and this is shared between regular and incognito windows. Perhaps DuckDuckGo is a configurable Firefox option. (EDIT: yes, it is. Goodbye, Chrome.)

tdkl 11y ago
If you like privacy, why not use Safari ?
- 7Z7 11y ago
  Has DuckDuckGo as a configurable search option too.
- biot 11y ago
  There were a few annoyances with Safari that I never really liked such as the inability to search for text within the page. In verifying whether this is still an issue, I managed to locate the "Find on Page" option hidden in the "Send to" menu, clearly something I never expected. Safari also used to hide the contents of the page as you edited the URL bar, something which is now fixed and I notice you can use that to find text in the current page as well. And now that I look into Firefox further, I don't see how I can search for text within the page here either and Firefox hides the page contents when you edit the URL. Looks like I'll be giving Safari another try.
  - sirn 11y ago
    > I never really liked such as the inability to search for text within the page You can actually find in page by typing a keyword in the address bar. There will be an "On this page" section at the bottom of the suggestion list, which you can tap in and jump through all matches. If I remembered correctly, this feature has been available since iOS 5 or so (which were a little bit clearer back then, since search box was separate from the address box).
    - arm 11y ago
      Yep. It’s a feature that’s already been around for quite a while. Safari on my iPod touch (3rd generation) running iOS 5.1.1 has it.
- aaronmhatch 11y ago
  Aren't we supposed to avoid stock Apple options due to concerns about privacy? For example, isn't Safari proprietary, suggesting that we should choose an open-source browser? Are Apple apps actually good for privacy?
  - danarmak 11y ago
    Why would you trust Apple for iOS but not for Safari?
spankalee 11y ago
Since Firefox must use the same WebKit renderer on iOS that Chrome does, then it likely suffers from the same problem. Of course, there might be a difference between UIWebView and WKWebView, and I don't know which Firefox is using.
- rockdoe 11y ago
  Firefox is using the newer WKWebView, unlike Chrome.
  - Me1000 11y ago
    Here is the relevant Chromium issue tracking the move to WKWebView: https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=423444 https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=423444 That link also lists a hand full of Radars filed which are preventing the iOS Chrome team from moving to WKWebView.
bduerst 11y ago
Isn't that a limitation of the iOS platform, not Chrome?
- biot 11y ago
  Perhaps, but Chrome's configurable search engines are all unacceptable. As Firefox has DuckDuckGo as a configurable option and DuckDuckGo doesn't track you (so no HTML5 local storage issues to deal with), it's a great workaround for that limitation.
  - bduerst 11y ago
    Aren't you now conflating a browser platform issue with search engines? Any website using HTML5 local storage could exploit the iOS problem.
    - biot 11y ago
      Yes, due to convenience (and app limitations). I want to be able to open an incognito window, do a search, and close the tab and have all history wiped. In iOS Chrome, because the least unacceptable search engine option is Google, this means history is actually tracked due to the HTML5 local storage issue. I could work around this by opening an incognito window, typing duckduckgo.com, and then doing a search but that's extra effort. In iOS Firefox, DuckDuckGo is a search engine option, so it avoids the issue without requiring extra effort.
      - bduerst 11y ago
        Couldn't you just open incognito window (in Chrome) and go to duckduckgo.com to search? Regardless of browser or platform that would solve your search engine problem.
        arm 11y ago
        Um… he addressed that already: “I could work around this by opening an incognito window, typing duckduckgo.com, and then doing a search but that's extra effort. In iOS Firefox, DuckDuckGo is a search engine option, so it avoids the issue without requiring extra effort.”
PMan74 11y ago
That is amazing. I was think about the same recently. You put a lot of faith in incognito mode working as you expect it to on the 'edge' cases (e.g. third party plugins, cache, cookies) but this seems like it does not work even for a pretty straightforward case. [I use edge there pretty liberally, even those cases are pretty far away from the edge]
tomtang0514 11y ago
To my understanding, chrome's incognito mode means everything you did within incognito will not be saved and applied to regular mode. But everything you did within regular mode will be applied to incognito. This works for localstorage and passwords. (Not sure about cookies, since my login session doesn't preserve in incognito, I guess cookie is not shared)
- chc 11y ago
  Are you sure it keeps localstorage? I was under the impression that passwords from normal mode were shared because that's a "meta" feature of the browser rather than part of the API web pages use, but localstorage and cookies weren't.
  - tomtang0514 11y ago
    Well, I just checked and it looks like localStorage is not shared. But I recall it was shared when I checked sometime last year, maybe a bug back then.
holygoat 11y ago
We use a totally separate WKWebView process pool and WKWebViewConfiguration for Private Browsing. From the perspective of the underlying web engine, we're two separate browsers.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- spankalee 11y ago
  Nice. Does that isolate private browsing sessions from each other?
  - st3fan 11y ago
    Yes. Also there is ZERO data sharing between Firefox and Safari. Both apps run sandboxed and cannot see eachothers data. Both have their own unique and private bookmark, history, cookie, password management.
- anon1mous 11y ago
  But on IOS you're not a real browser, are you? In my humble understanding Firefox is just a Safari skin, crippled by the lack of JIT.
  - elithrar 11y ago
    IIRC, the new (since iOS 8) WKWebView uses the Nitro JIT engine for JS, unlike the UIWebView of old.
  - giovannibajo1 11y ago
    A technical centric view of a browser would focus on the rendering engine. But modern browsers, in their being almost small operating systems, go very far beyond the HTML/CSS/JavaScript rendering engine. I will list a few things that vary between browsers irrespective of the rendering engine: tab handling, incognito mode, extension system/ecosystem, privacy handling, search/url bar/completion, security policies, anti malware strategies, download manager, history management, bookmark management, cross platform syncing, password management. And all these things have a higher impact on the user experience than the rendering engine. All these things might be completely different between Firefox and Safari on iOS. Saying that Firefox on iOS is not "a real browser" is an understatement.
e40 11y ago
Not too long ago I found that you can restore a deleted tab in incognito mode in Firefox. I was pretty shocked at that. Chrome behaves as expected for this particular test.
- potch 11y ago
  This is true only until that incognito session is closed. Future sessions will have no knowledge of that tab.
- Nemo157 11y ago
  Similarly in Safari on OS X if you force-quit or uncleanly shutdown your Mac it will restore private windows when you restart it...
Dirlewanger 11y ago
I wish people would stop thinking DuckDuckGo cares about your privacy. It's all marketing BS. The founder sold his old startup in 2006 to classmates.com, an incredibly scummy company.
- akulbe 11y ago
  Incorrect. He sold his social network "The Names Database", to classmates.com, in 2006. DDG came later.
  - Dirlewanger 11y ago
    This is exactly what I said.
    - chris_wot 11y ago
      Almost everyone assumed you were talking about the object of your objections: DuckDuckGo.
      - garethadams 11y ago
        [citation needed]
        chris_wot 11y ago
        Yeah, not the intended purpose of that meme.
- akulbe 11y ago
  Like chris_wot below, your comment reads as if you're talking about DDG. So you downvote me? Nice. #not
jimmytucson 11y ago
"Incognito mode" is meant to stop data from being stored on your computer, not Google's. This is written in plain English every time you start a process in "incognito mode".

by biot 11y ago

tdkl 11y ago

If you like privacy, why not use Safari ?

7Z7 11y ago
Has DuckDuckGo as a configurable search option too.
biot 11y ago
There were a few annoyances with Safari that I never really liked such as the inability to search for text within the page. In verifying whether this is still an issue, I managed to locate the "Find on Page" option hidden in the "Send to" menu, clearly something I never expected. Safari also used to hide the contents of the page as you edited the URL bar, something which is now fixed and I notice you can use that to find text in the current page as well. And now that I look into Firefox further, I don't see how I can search for text within the page here either and Firefox hides the page contents when you edit the URL. Looks like I'll be giving Safari another try.
- sirn 11y ago
  > I never really liked such as the inability to search for text within the page You can actually find in page by typing a keyword in the address bar. There will be an "On this page" section at the bottom of the suggestion list, which you can tap in and jump through all matches. If I remembered correctly, this feature has been available since iOS 5 or so (which were a little bit clearer back then, since search box was separate from the address box).
  - arm 11y ago
    Yep. It’s a feature that’s already been around for quite a while. Safari on my iPod touch (3rd generation) running iOS 5.1.1 has it.
aaronmhatch 11y ago
Aren't we supposed to avoid stock Apple options due to concerns about privacy? For example, isn't Safari proprietary, suggesting that we should choose an open-source browser? Are Apple apps actually good for privacy?
- danarmak 11y ago
  Why would you trust Apple for iOS but not for Safari?

spankalee 11y ago

Since Firefox must use the same WebKit renderer on iOS that Chrome does, then it likely suffers from the same problem. Of course, there might be a difference between UIWebView and WKWebView, and I don't know which Firefox is using.

rockdoe 11y ago
Firefox is using the newer WKWebView, unlike Chrome.
- Me1000 11y ago
  Here is the relevant Chromium issue tracking the move to WKWebView: https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=423444 https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=423444 That link also lists a hand full of Radars filed which are preventing the iOS Chrome team from moving to WKWebView.

bduerst 11y ago

Isn't that a limitation of the iOS platform, not Chrome?

biot 11y ago
Perhaps, but Chrome's configurable search engines are all unacceptable. As Firefox has DuckDuckGo as a configurable option and DuckDuckGo doesn't track you (so no HTML5 local storage issues to deal with), it's a great workaround for that limitation.
- bduerst 11y ago
  Aren't you now conflating a browser platform issue with search engines? Any website using HTML5 local storage could exploit the iOS problem.
  - biot 11y ago
    Yes, due to convenience (and app limitations). I want to be able to open an incognito window, do a search, and close the tab and have all history wiped. In iOS Chrome, because the least unacceptable search engine option is Google, this means history is actually tracked due to the HTML5 local storage issue. I could work around this by opening an incognito window, typing duckduckgo.com, and then doing a search but that's extra effort. In iOS Firefox, DuckDuckGo is a search engine option, so it avoids the issue without requiring extra effort.
    - bduerst 11y ago
      Couldn't you just open incognito window (in Chrome) and go to duckduckgo.com to search? Regardless of browser or platform that would solve your search engine problem.
      - arm 11y ago
        Um… he addressed that already: “I could work around this by opening an incognito window, typing duckduckgo.com, and then doing a search but that's extra effort. In iOS Firefox, DuckDuckGo is a search engine option, so it avoids the issue without requiring extra effort.”

PMan74 11y ago

That is amazing. I was think about the same recently. You put a lot of faith in incognito mode working as you expect it to on the 'edge' cases (e.g. third party plugins, cache, cookies) but this seems like it does not work even for a pretty straightforward case. [I use edge there pretty liberally, even those cases are pretty far away from the edge]

tomtang0514 11y ago

To my understanding, chrome's incognito mode means everything you did within incognito will not be saved and applied to regular mode. But everything you did within regular mode will be applied to incognito. This works for localstorage and passwords. (Not sure about cookies, since my login session doesn't preserve in incognito, I guess cookie is not shared)

chc 11y ago
Are you sure it keeps localstorage? I was under the impression that passwords from normal mode were shared because that's a "meta" feature of the browser rather than part of the API web pages use, but localstorage and cookies weren't.
- tomtang0514 11y ago
  Well, I just checked and it looks like localStorage is not shared. But I recall it was shared when I checked sometime last year, maybe a bug back then.

holygoat 11y ago

We use a totally separate WKWebView process pool and WKWebViewConfiguration for Private Browsing. From the perspective of the underlying web engine, we're two separate browsers.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
spankalee 11y ago
Nice. Does that isolate private browsing sessions from each other?
- st3fan 11y ago
  Yes. Also there is ZERO data sharing between Firefox and Safari. Both apps run sandboxed and cannot see eachothers data. Both have their own unique and private bookmark, history, cookie, password management.
anon1mous 11y ago
But on IOS you're not a real browser, are you? In my humble understanding Firefox is just a Safari skin, crippled by the lack of JIT.
- elithrar 11y ago
  IIRC, the new (since iOS 8) WKWebView uses the Nitro JIT engine for JS, unlike the UIWebView of old.
- giovannibajo1 11y ago
  A technical centric view of a browser would focus on the rendering engine. But modern browsers, in their being almost small operating systems, go very far beyond the HTML/CSS/JavaScript rendering engine. I will list a few things that vary between browsers irrespective of the rendering engine: tab handling, incognito mode, extension system/ecosystem, privacy handling, search/url bar/completion, security policies, anti malware strategies, download manager, history management, bookmark management, cross platform syncing, password management. And all these things have a higher impact on the user experience than the rendering engine. All these things might be completely different between Firefox and Safari on iOS. Saying that Firefox on iOS is not "a real browser" is an understatement.

e40 11y ago

Not too long ago I found that you can restore a deleted tab in incognito mode in Firefox. I was pretty shocked at that. Chrome behaves as expected for this particular test.

potch 11y ago
This is true only until that incognito session is closed. Future sessions will have no knowledge of that tab.
Nemo157 11y ago
Similarly in Safari on OS X if you force-quit or uncleanly shutdown your Mac it will restore private windows when you restart it...

Dirlewanger 11y ago

I wish people would stop thinking DuckDuckGo cares about your privacy. It's all marketing BS. The founder sold his old startup in 2006 to classmates.com, an incredibly scummy company.

akulbe 11y ago
Incorrect. He sold his social network "The Names Database", to classmates.com, in 2006. DDG came later.
- Dirlewanger 11y ago
  This is exactly what I said.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    Almost everyone assumed you were talking about the object of your objections: DuckDuckGo.
    - garethadams 11y ago
      [citation needed]
      - chris_wot 11y ago
        Yeah, not the intended purpose of that meme.
akulbe 11y ago
Like chris_wot below, your comment reads as if you're talking about DDG. So you downvote me? Nice. #not

jimmytucson 11y ago

"Incognito mode" is meant to stop data from being stored on your computer, not Google's. This is written in plain English every time you start a process in "incognito mode".