Private Windows -- WHY?
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Running multiple accounts at once (usually to test something) without having to spin up a whole new user data directory & profile.
Also as a quick toggle if one of my extensions is breaking something and I want to browse with it disabled while not turning it off completely.
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And yes, I do agree that it is a bit of a misnomer. If you're interested, keep an eye out for this paper when it is published:
Your Secrets Are Safe: How Browsers' Explanations Impact Misconceptions About Private Browsing Mode
Yuxi Wu, Panya Gupta, Miranda Wei, Yasemin Acar, Sascha Fahl, Blase Ur
Proceedings of the Web Conference 2018 - WWW'18 (to appear) -
@steffie said in Private Windows -- WHY?:
Me? [...]What injustice will i suffer next; allegations that i am also cynical?
YMMD. Suffice it to say I imagine you looking deliberately innocent...no?
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There are functions in Vivaldi where I can also ask WHY
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@catweazle said in Private Windows -- WHY?:
There are functions in Vivaldi where I can also ask WHY
I guess is for VR devices ...
Tried once, quite tripping XD -
On the danger of (over-)deverloper-splainging this, but to make shure to give a consistent overview for all discussion participants:
@hadden89 It was a solution to an actual work problem. Those who came up with it knew there already existed incredibly better ways to hide porn (or other things).Private Window as a technical concept
Isolation of normally shared session data. Necessary for accessing the same site using different accounts at the same time (admin+user, projects on github, etc.).
@steffie To be exact, the design goal here is to share as much resources as possible while not breaking a website's impression of separate user-side endpoints.Why the name
private
Developers usually differentiate between
shared
andprivate
(orpublic
andprivate
) resources. So when creating a browser context that is (partly) isolated from the rest, a close sensible name isprivate
, meaning something is not shared with (other) global resources.
@lonm it's named correctly considering programmer semantics instead of everyday standards. Aaand here we are (again):Communication problems
Browser vendors failed to take into account that most people do associate a very different meaning with the word
private
than the guys who came up with the idea and its (initial) naming convention. -
"Allow in incognito" under Tools/Extensions
Indeed they do, & i readily concede my error. I made a decision long ago [ie, in the very early days of V actually gaining PWs] that they were/are of no use for me [in the sense that it seems others use them, anyway], & as such i would put them to a different use... which is to use them as a fast simple way to view a website sans all my extensions, when troubleshooting said site's [mis]behaviour in V in normal tabs, to instantly see if the aberrations relate to extensions or not [after which, natch, i can then begin testing individual extensions]. Given that usage had become completely ingrained for me, i plumb forgot that in fact what you reminded me of, is the true situation. Ta for that.
Btw, has something changed with the forum software over the past ~month or so, wrt the way that posters receive the upper RHS corner iconised notifications when someone replies to their posts? Until comparatively recently this worked well & reliably for me, but in more recent times, its reliability has become very poor. Lately i keep discovering by pure chance, well after the event, that people have replied to me yet i never knew coz either the little bell icon never lit up with the red/white numeric counter, OR, at those times it still did light up, it did not include mention of certain replies. Yours, here, is one such. I only found it by accident whilst looking for something else. I do hope the notifications become trustworthy again asap.
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@lonm Thanks!
#1 - most interesting initiative, very cunning.
#2 - yes me too. PWs are good for this. -
@steffie said in Private Windows -- WHY?:
Btw, has something changed with the forum software over the past ~month or so, wrt the way that posters receive the upper RHS corner iconised notifications when someone replies to their posts?
This works flawlessly here - I do have the forum mod extension installed. Not sure if this breaks or fixes something about the notification...
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@morg42 said in Private Windows -- WHY?:
looking deliberately innocent
But, if one is genuinely pure as the driven snow [a really weird aphorism for an australian to use], then how on earth could she possibly look anything other than the very personification of innocence? And because we can both agree that concepts of sarcasm, cynicism & irony are utterly unknown to me, clearly you can trust & believe all that you have just read here.
Smirk, wink, gnuk gnuk gnuk...
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@steffie said in Private Windows -- WHY?:
Smirk, wink, gnuk gnuk gnuk...
I know the meaning of your words exactly the way flowers don't. But I can guess...
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@becm Thanks! That was interesting & useful to read so i'm grateful that you posted it. Unfortunately however...
Browser vendors failed to take into account that most people do associate a very different meaning with the word private than the guys who came up with the idea and its (initial) naming convention
That completely encapsulates my confusion & dislike for it [apart from, of course, unfaithful men]. I'm one of those annoying types for whom semantics & definitions matter, so when i encounter usage of a word / name / term in an inappropriate or even outright oxymoronic sense, i tend to rebel.
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works flawlessly here
Wow, fast reply; so yes, it apparently works fine at your end.
do have the forum mod extension installed
Ditto, so logically that needs to be excluded as a factor.
Crazy mad idea: Correlation is not Causation, i know, but coincidentally it seemed to be around the time i began finessing my uO settings with your marvellous help, that i first began suspecting a deterioration in the forum icon notifications. Conclusion:
It's all your damn faultahem, typo, i meant that do you think there's some esoteric way that an inappropriate uO setting of mine might be affecting this? -
@steffie Even with inline scripts disabled, all works well that I expect to... (Naturally, my js blocker is disabled on v.net/v.com)
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@morg42 Ta. The notification worked fine for your past two replies. I just went to make a coffee, reflected on my last post, & decided to edit it to strike out my foolish hypothesis... it fails even a basic logic test. Unfortunately you kindly read my idiocy before i could correct it. Logically there's no way IMO that anything i could set in uO could intermittently suppress some notifications. It would have to block all of them all the time, or none of them ever. Sigh, silly me.
Just for the record though, for comparison with yours:
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@morg42 This one... this one... V forum did NOT notify me of this one. Again i only found this one by accident. Gahhhh.
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I "un-forbade" (terrifying but funny word) 3rd-party. For one I knew from past experience that there are no trackers on V's website. Furthermore, I didn't want to enable it everytime someone linked an image or the like. Other than that, I see almost no differences.
I wonder why my browser makes connections to vivaldi.com while yours doesn't seem to care...
There doesn't seem to be a selectivity to whose posts you are notified...? Nah, never mind
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@steffie There is something wrong with notifications on the Forum ATM. You can see them all if you select "see all notifications" but they are not popping up and clicking on the bell goes into an endless loading loop.
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I occasionally use PW to sign in to websites with different accounts without having to first sign out from my main accounts (or if I'm using another person's PC, without signing out their accounts).
I also sometimes use it when searching for things that might give really weird results (sometimes you end up researching this and that when writing fiction...), which I don't want to have in my search history. -
@ayespy said in Private Windows -- WHY?:
There is something wrong with notifications on the Forum ATM
Oh thank you thank you... i have been assuming that my inevitable descent into madness has been recently accelerating!
Your post here, was a perfect exemplar of the problem. I just happened to be at my pc, & looking at the monitor, at the exact moment your post arrived. This is what happened, at my end:
- The desktop notification popped up in my screen's botom rhs corner announcing your post. Duration maybe 2 - 3 seconds. Excellent / highly useful when i see them, useless when i'm not at pc.
- The forum bell icon did not light up. Knowing though from #1 that you had indeed posted, i clicked the bell, saw your item, but ... significant... it was already unchecked just like all other posts do once i have clicked the bell icon's dropdown jumplist. That's the key -- if my quick glance at that list shows no apparently new items [ie, if all entries are unchecked], i assume that i genuinely have already looked at all older entries therein.