[whatwg] Private browsing vs. Storage and Databases

[Aryeh Gregor]

On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 8:24 PM, Brady Eidson <beidson at apple.com> wrote:
> 1 - Disable LocalStorage completely when private browsing is on.  Remove it
> from the DOM completely.
> 2 - Disable LocalStorage mostly when private browsing is on.  It exists at
> window.localStorage, but is empty and has a 0-quota.
> 3 - Slide a "fake" LocalStorage object in when private browsing is enabled.
>  It starts empty, changes to it are successful, but it is never written to
> disk.  When private browsing is disabled, all changes to the private
> browsing proxy are thrown out.
> 4 - Cover the real LocalStorage object with a private browsing layer.  It
> starts with all previously stored contents.  Any changes to it are pretended
> to occur, but are never written to disk.  When private browsing is disabled,
> all items revert to the state they were in when private browsing was enabled
> and writing changes to disk is re-enabled.
> 5 - Treat LocalStorage as read-only when private browsing is on.  It exists,
> and all previously stored contents can be retrieved.  Any attempt to
> setItem(), removeItem(), or clear() fail.

How are cookies handled right now?  Surely the issues should be pretty
much the same?

> Option 3 is simple to implement and option 4 would difficult to implement
> efficiently.  Both would lead to bizarre behavior where data that the
> application thought was saved really wasn't.

I certainly can't think of how 3 could ever cause a problem.  It
should be the same as the user just logging in from a computer they
haven't used before, shouldn't it?

I'm not certain about 4.  What would be a concrete case where 4 would
break, but normal use from multiple computers would not?

I don't think 1, 2, or 5 are good ideas, since they make localStorage
semi-usable at best when privacy mode is enabled.