Firefox still haven't fixed a privacy bug of keeping a record of all your closed tabs in private mode. You can all try by opening several tabs, going to any sites of your choosing and closeing them. If you invoke, reopen last closed tabs, all of them returns.
This simply doesn't happen in Safari and Chrome. I reported this issue some time back and someone at Firfeox said this is not an issue.
So if I left my private window open, but with no tabs, someone can always retrace my steps even though I've closed all my tabs. How's that for privacy?
That's not a bug, it's just a different behaviour. I can see the value in being able to reopen accidentally closed tabs, and if you want to get rid of that history, close the window.
Given that Chrome keeps cookies for the window lifetime, I'd say that the fact it throws away history gives a false sense of security - they may not get exact history, but they can get some data still.
If you want the behaviour you are describing, it sounds like the feature should be "private tab" not "private window".
Chrome preserves your cookies across tabs, so it's not really "private" in the sense that you seem to want, either. I wouldn't say that Firefox is less private. I'd say that they made a design decision to allow you to re-open tabs in privacy mode in case you unintentionally close them. In both Firefox and Chrome, you need to close your private window if you really want to erase your data.
To further your point: if you log in to you Gmail account in a private window, close the tab, but keep the window open, someone can open Gmail in that window and will be still logged into your account.
I've noticed this, although it's weirdly inconsistent, which is possibly worse. Sometimes it hit C-S-t and get the tab I just closed, sometimes I get something from 20 minutes ago.
It'd be one thing if a quick C-S-t within a few seconds could restore something you accidentally closed, but this behaviour is utterly incomprehensible.
Firefox has two hot keys- C-S-t for undo closed tab, and C-S-n for undo closed window.
It’s slightly different from the chrome behavior where both of those actions are treated as the same, and both are on ctrl+shift+t. I switched chrome->firefox several months ago and I’m still not used to it. 99% of the time C-S-t does what I want, that other 1% it’s a different key.
Interesting, although I'm talking sometimes I close three tabs and literally immediately try to restore and get like, the first tab I closed instead of the 3rd sometimes. I don't think I'm just pressing the inappropriate key. But maybe I'll try C-S-n next time this happens and see if it resolves the issue.
This simply doesn't happen in Safari and Chrome. I reported this issue some time back and someone at Firfeox said this is not an issue.
So if I left my private window open, but with no tabs, someone can always retrace my steps even though I've closed all my tabs. How's that for privacy?