Add a Private Browsing shortcut during installation?

[back2themoon]

Yep, as Firefox does. I think it is helpful having a quick way to directly launch the browser in Private mode.

FF private shortcut.png

I'd also suggest to not throw these shortcuts in "\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\" as FF currently does. Create a Pale Moon folder in \Start Menu\Programs\ and put them there. It's more organised having an own folder and looks better in the Start Menu.

By the way, I manually tried creating a shortcut to Private mode by simply adding -private to the palemoon.exe target. It seems to work fine, but with two issues:

1. The PM button is wrong:

PM button.png

2. If Pale Moon is already open, the shortcut will just open a new, non-Private window to the home page.

[sinfulosd]

Yep, as Firefox does. I think it is helpful having a quick way to directly launch the browser in Private mode.

I personally either right-click Pale Moon's icon on the taskbar to open the private mode or just Ctrl+Shift+P the keyboard to open it right away, and I think both options are quicker than just going into the start menu search bar and type "Pale..." for me to click on the second bar of it everytime. I never used the Firefox private mode shortcut and in some cases it was even inconvenient, due to me not being used to it and I just kept finding the icon for private mode and I had to keep reminding myself what it was.

[back2themoon]

These are good alternatives, but they require either for Pale Moon to be already open, or having a pinned Taskbar icon.

Perhaps this additional shortcut could be offered as an option in the installer?

[Lucio Chiappetti]

Yep, as Firefox does. I think it is helpful having a quick way to directly launch the browser in Private mode.

I see from palemoon --help that there is an option to start the browser in private mode on a specific window (I suppose it could be home or abot:blank)

Code: Select all

palemoon --private-window <url>  

I do not know whether further windows opened would ingerit private mode.
(I use private mode only for home banking and use File=>New Private Window from a non-private session)

[therube]

as Firefox does

What does FF do?
Does it have the same limitations as you've mentioned above?

Yes.
Using the -private-window switch (in FF), has the same limitations.

Though, FF does have an "always private" mode - that you can set in its' Privacy options.
(And with that, all FF windows are in a "always private mode", with "Cookies and site data" being cleared when FF is closed.)



I don't know that there is a way, that there was any intention of having an "always" private mode of operation.

Starting PM with -private, opens a private window.
Subsequent windows open in non-private mode - unless you tell PM otherwise.

Starting PM, normally, opens a non-private window.
Subsequent windows open in non-private mode - unless you tell PM otherwise.

The -private (& -browser) switches are intended to operate in a new session (so on fresh PM start up), otherwise (as mentioned) they simply act to open a new (non-private) window in an existing session.


If you want an "always private" session, if you will, use a different Profile.
(so something like: palemoon.exe -profile C:\PRIVATE -no-remote)
Then simply nuke it (the Profile Folder) when done, or nuke wanted data from said Profile when done.
This "always private" session would be no more or less "private" then above.
It is "private", only in your mind, only to the extent that you purge data from it.
You could use the Portable version of PM in a similar manner.

[back2themoon]

What does FF do? Does it have the same limitations as you've mentioned above?

Let's not overcomplicate this. It provides a shortcut to directly open a private window, whether FF is already open or not. That is all. It does not have those limitations.

It does point however to a different process: private_browsing.exe (64kb). I don't know if this was created to make things easier and possibly avoid similar limitations.

[therube]

(I've made some additions, above.)


So "always private mode" in FF, sets: user_pref("browser.privatebrowsing.autostart", true);

That setting is different to using the -private-window switch (which, from what I see, behaves the same as does PM - along with its limitations).

[therube]

private_browsing.exe, simply looks to be a shim that does nothing more nor less then running firefox.exe -private-window.

Matter of fact, you can run private_browsing.exe rather then firefox.exe (itself).
private_browsing.exe, again has the same limitations mentioned.


Setting FF to "always use private browsing mode" is actually different.