There is a forum post Private Windows on Firefox which was posted just under two years ago. I can't seem to be able to post a comment on it, so I'm posting a new discussion here.
On that post, Romain Testard asks "How can we make private windows simpler to use so you engage with them more?" and follows that with "What could we do to help users feel like private Windows guarantee a higher level of privacy?"
For me, part of the answer is, don't make me spend any part of my brain power wondering whether I'm in a private window or not. Let me focus on the sites I'm attempting to use privately.
I have about a dozen different Firefox profiles I use in order to have a different experience on certain websites or reduce cross-site cookie sharing. I sometimes use private browsing in those profiles, but it is not my default behavior in those profiles.
Recently, I created a profile for use with sites for which I only want to use private browsing. I discovered to my annoyance that using the private browsing only setting removes all visual indication that I'm using private browsing.
Apparently at some point in the past somebody thought removing that indication was a good idea. Quoting from a response to my bug If I have Firefox set to always use Private Browsing, I never get the private browsing disclaimer or...:
"The current behavior is that we are making the permanent private browsing mode look like a normal browsing window in order to reduce confusion. Therefore, we don't show private browsing specific things in the never remember history mode(which is permanent private browsing mode literally), including the warning message here. If we want to show the private browsing warning for the permanent private browsing mode, we will need to label all windows as private browsing windows in permanent private browsing mode. That's a design decision that we agasint."
Actually, I find the current behavior more confusing, not less. Because I spend most of my Firefox time in non-private tabs, not seeing the Private Browsing look when I expect and want to see it causes me to divert a portion of my attention to reminding myself that I actually am in private browsing. I wind up going into settings to confirm that I am in private browsing or opening the file menu to verify that I can only open a new private window. This wastes my time and distracts me from my task.
It's really important to me that private windows look like private windows. So I wound up disabling that setting and instead for that profile chose a local home page which reminds me to open a private window.
Hiding private window styling might make sense for someone who only uses private browsing, but that person is not me.
