Can there be a way to completely turn off the private browsing option?
Please, Please, Please add a way in Options to disable this completely. I will never use it. If I want to delete the history, I know how. It ends up on inadvertently all the time. Now when I right click I only get, "Open in a New tab, and Open in a new Private window" I've lost the "Open in a New Window" option.
It seems like it couldn't be that hard to give a switch to turn it off forever? I do so hate it. Mainly the fact that it ends up on accidentally all the time then I have to close out all the way, all windows and carefully go back in to get Firefox back to working the way I'm used to and depending on.
Thanks, Michael
Alla svar (6)
Hi Michael
If this is happening by default you can change it: 1. Type "about:config" in the address bar and press Enter 2. Look for the following entry: browser.privatebrowsing.autostart 3. Set this value to False and restart the browser. If it is True, do not change anything and consider this add-on
There is an add on to disable Private browsing that may be helpful. https://addons.mozilla.org/En-us/firefox/addon/disable-private-browsing/
If there are any other questions, we are happy to help.
One possibility is this extension: Disable Private Browsing. I haven't tried it myself, but I think it would prevent you from accidentally opening a private window and getting stuck there.
Your More System Details shows that you have a user.js file, which Firefox reads at startup to override your previously saved preferences. If you don't recall creating this file, you may want to remove it. This article has the steps for that: How to fix preferences that won't save.
I tried the about:config thing. I'm not sure I understand step 3 since it says Set this value to False, and it was already False. But then you say If it is True, do not change anything. Of course it's not True, since it was already False, and you didn't say to set it to True. So maybe I'm missing something.
Evidently many share my hatred of the Private Browsing option and the way it works, since there are so many extensions built to kill it. I will try the add on you recommend and see if that works. But this is so basic it ought to be in the Options dialog box; then you wouldn't have to worry if it was compatible with the next version of Firefox. And they do come out so often.
When you're in Private Browsing, it's quite distracting as it changes many of the basic ways Firefox works, right-clicking and so forth.
I have downloaded and installed 'Disable Private Browsing'. To no effect, the choice still comes up in every menu. I have searched the info on it trying to find if there is something I have to do to turn it on once it's installed and I'm not finding any information on the addon developers page. No new entries in the Tools menu and so forth.
Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions (Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance).
- Do NOT click the Reset button on the Safe Mode start window.
- https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Safe+Mode
- https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Troubleshooting+extensions+and+themes
Add code to the userChrome.css file below the default @namespace line to hide "Open Link in New Private Window" in the right-click context menu.
The customization files userChrome.css (user interface) and userContent.css (websites) are located in the chrome folder in the Firefox profile folder.
@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul"); /* only needed once */
#context-openlinkprivate { display:none!important; }
Note that your System Details List shows that you have a user.js file in the profile folder to initialize some prefs on each start of Firefox.
The user.js file is only present if you or other software has created it, so normally it wouldn't be there. you can check its content with a plain text editor if you didn't create this file yourself.
The user.js file is read each time you start Firefox and initializes preferences to the value specified in this file, so preferences set via user.js can only be changed temporarily for the current session.