cleared history momentarily revealed in global menu bookmarks - privacy issue

[William Heslam]

Binary package hint: firefox

Having cleared my browsing history in Firefox, about half an hour later I clicked on the "history" button on the global menu. For a very brief second I saw my previously cleared history in the list, which (after maybe a quarter of a second) disappeared and was replaced by my proper, recent history.

I'm using compiz, Ubuntu 11.04, unity (and therefore global menu) and Firefox 4. I haven't tried to reproduce the bug yet, but I think its important to note it for posterity.

At a wild, untechnical guess, I'd say it's possibly less to do with firefox breaking its own privacy rules and more to do with compiz (or some other aspect of the desktop) saving a texture/image representation of my previous, now cleared history. Not technically a violation of either program's security (I could also take a screenshot and save that in my Pictures folder which would equally achieve the same thing), but since it happened 'accidentally' without any intention or action from myself, it seems to be against the spirit of Firefox's clear history function - when the history is cleared, it should be gone.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: firefox 4.0.1+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.11.04.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic 2.6.38.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-8-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon May 2 15:03:27 2011
FirefoxPackages:
 firefox 4.0.1+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.11.04.1
 flashplugin-installer 10.2.159.1ubuntu1
 adobe-flashplugin N/A
 icedtea-plugin 1.1~20110420-0ubuntu1
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release amd64 (20110427.1)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: firefox
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

William,

We are sorry that we do not always have the capacity to review all reported bugs in a timely manner. You reported this bug some time ago and there have been many changes in Ubuntu since that time.

We would like to close this bug report as it refers to very old versions of Ubuntu and Firefox but before we do we are asking do you still see a problem related to the one that you reported? Please let us know if you do.

If we do not hear from you the bug report will close itself in approximately 60 days time.

Thank you for helping make Ubuntu better.

Paul White
[Ubuntu Bug Squad]

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for firefox (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]