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Should "Show your windows and tabs from last time" option results in all session cookies being kept?

  • 4 cavab
  • 1 has this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by primerano

primerano
primerano
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I thought the following option only saved session cookies for the current tabs.

When Firefox starts: Show your windows and tabs from last time

But I have observed that it keeps session cookies for every tab I had opened that day. This basically means that the "Show your windows and tabs from last time" retains all session cookies you have ever had set for perpetuity. They will never be deleted.

Steps... don't use foo.bar.com as i don't know what is there

  • I have foo.bar.com open in a tab. it sets a session cookie.
  • I have 4 other sites open.
  • I close the foo.bar.com tab.
  • I close the browser
  • I assume the foo.bar.com cookie is gone
  • I open the browser and the 4 (non foo.bar.com) tabs reopen
  • I open a new tab and go to foo.bar.com.
  • I observe the session cookie being sent to foo.bar.com
I thought the following option only saved session cookies for the current tabs. When Firefox starts: Show your windows and tabs from last time But I have observed that it keeps session cookies for every tab I had opened that day. This basically means that the "Show your windows and tabs from last time" retains all session cookies you have ever had set for perpetuity. They will never be deleted. Steps... don't use foo.bar.com as i don't know what is there * I have foo.bar.com open in a tab. it sets a session cookie. * I have 4 other sites open. * I close the foo.bar.com tab. * I close the browser * I assume the foo.bar.com cookie is gone * I open the browser and the 4 (non foo.bar.com) tabs reopen * I open a new tab and go to foo.bar.com. * I observe the session cookie being sent to foo.bar.com

All Replies (4)

cor-el
cor-el
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  • Top 10 Contributor
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Firefox keeps an undo stack for the last 25 tabs in current Firefox releases (browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo, browser.sessionstore.max_windows_undo). I assume that cookies from closed tabs are stored as well to be able to reopen closed tabs.

  • History -> Recently Closed Tabs/Windows
primerano
primerano Question owner
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This feels like a bad idea but it is probably what people who use the "Show your windows and tabs from last time" option want.

It makes life hard for developers who are trying to debug cookie issues and it results in conversations like this one.

"Did you restart your browser?" "Yes" "are you sure?" "Yes!, WTF, i'm not an idiot" .. in developer's head. "i clearly see the session cookie on the wire. this guy is an idiot"

When in fact, Firefox is just doing something that we wouldn't expect.

I would propose that when you restart your browser the undo feature is disabled.

cor-el
cor-el
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  • Top 10 Contributor
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You can exclude the cookies from being part of session restore.

primerano
primerano Question owner
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I don't have control over other people's settings. This is more of a feature request I guess. If someone closes their browser they would not expect sessions for tabs that we're closed before closing Firefox to be active still.

If it is true that Firefox saves session cookies for recently closed tabs (or undo functionally), I would propose that those cookies be tossed on browser restart.