'New identity' Button Shifts Window Position

[issuant]

When using the 'New identity' button to restart the browser on Windows, it shifts the position of the browser window from the set position prior to the restart. This is very unpleasant, requiring correct repositioning of the window afterwards.

[Thorin-Oakenpants]

https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/42325

[issuant]

I am not sure if I understand what that page is saying. Is it being fixed?

[Thorin-Oakenpants]

"new identity" works differently to closing and reopening the browser, as it wants to retain the application's bootstrapping of tor. In order to do this, it opens a new window before destroying all the others - this is the same mechanism you see when you go Menu > New Window - keep doing it and you will see the windows stacking up, each offset to it's parent.

Mullvad Browser doesn't use tor - so this button is mostly pointless. New identity does do something else though, it sanitizes state (things written to disk such as cache, web site data .. cookies etc). I think, in Mullvad Browser v14 this button is removed from tabstrip if it hasn't been moved - i.e customized position - but I'm not 100% sure - mine all seem to have it.

So this is a Tor Browser issue, low priority (given our resources), and unlikely to be addressed. For MB if you want a new session, then just close MB then reopen it

[ruihildt]

It has not been removed for 14.0, but it is planned to change it.
Right now it acts like a glorified restart button, which is practical, but I'm not sure to what extent users actually use it.

In the mid/long term the identity button will change, and depending on the way it is, we might move to restarting the browser, which would solve this issue.

[Thorin-Oakenpants]

Mozilla used to have a restart button but it was removed due to lack of use (telemetry). There's just wasn't a need or justified use case. Maybe that's change a little with today's privacy awareness and sanitizing. And the engineering still exists - see restart browser after updating - that is, it shuts down completely, restarts. But, and I tested this a few hours ago on nightly whilst tidying some TZP "storage" (cookies, idb, localStorage, sessionStorage) tests, that a restart-after-update-button did not sanitize idb entries - so there are definitely holes

That said, there is a End your private session button feature which we could utilize in the future

• this is the 🔥 button in PB mode

It closes all other PB mode windows, then all open tabs in the current PB mode window, and sanitizes PB mode data - without restarting. But we have disabled this in MB until we can ensure that it works with our expectations.

The downside to this is it's limited to PB mode windows, and we're working towards a "persistent" mode in MB (no promises and it's going to take a lot of work and analysis) - i.e don't start in PB mode, and allow the user to "touch the disk" - e.g. they can opt into saving passwords, opt into saving specific site login data.

[issuant]

but I'm not sure to what extent users actually use it

At least in my case the reason I do not use it is because of this shift. It's too tedious having to reposition the window every time. I have found new use for it in #330 though.

It closes all other PB mode windows, then all open tabs in the current PB mode window, and sanitizes PB mode data - without restarting.

That sounds really useful.