Page titles can leak from Private Browsing to regular browsing

[halfer]

Binary package hint: firefox-3.5

I have found a set of circumstances where data from a private browsing session can leak into the regular browsing session. I should be interested to see if other people can reproduce this.

Using the independent google proxy Scroogle, do any search using their SSL proxy (https://ssl.scroogle.org/) in a general browsing mode. Afterwards, ensure that the Awesome Bar contains the above link, *and* also the link to the POST-generated search results. You can do this simply by typing "Scroogle" in the address bar. You should see in the bar the text you searched for.

Next, switch to private browsing mode, and load the secure Scroogle proxy again. This time, search for something private (and different to the first search). Again ensure that this appears in the Awesome Bar. Then switch out of private mode, and check the Awesome Bar again. You may find - as I do - that the title displayed in the bar corresponds to the private session and not to the general one.

In my experience I found that there was a short delay between surfing to a page and its link/title appearing in the bar. Also, I couldn't replicate this with a regular google search, so it may have something to do with the page being SSL. Or it could be that with google, it is using GET, and is able to differentiate between private/general on the URL. Since Scroogle uses POST, the URLs are the same and so an incorrect presumption is made that the most recently discovered page title is non-private.

Anyway thanks for investigating, and thanks for Firefox!

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun Nov 29 11:46:38 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release amd64 (20091027)
NonfreeKernelModules: wl
Package: firefox-3.5 3.5.5+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.10.1
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-15.50-generic
SourcePackage: firefox-3.5
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-15-generic x86_64
XsessionErrors:
 (gnome-settings-daemon:2126): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
 (polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:2261): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `initialization_value != 0' failed
 (nautilus:2226): Eel-CRITICAL **: eel_preferences_get_boolean: assertion `preferences_is_initialized ()' failed
 (gnome-panel:2225): Gdk-WARNING **: /build/buildd/gtk+2.0-2.18.3/gdk/x11/gdkdrawable-x11.c:952 drawable is not a pixmap or window
 (nautilus:2683): Eel-CRITICAL **: eel_preferences_get_boolean: assertion `preferences_is_initialized ()' failed