[whatwg] Private browsing vs. Storage and Databases

[Jonas Sicking]

2009/4/7 Ian Fette (イアンフェッティ) <ifette at google.com>:
>>> 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 strongly share Jonas' concern that we'd tell web applications that we're
>> storing there data when we already know we're going to dump it later.  For 3
>> and 4 both, we're basically lying to the application and therefore the user.
>>  Imagine a scenario where a user has no network connection and unknowingly
>> left their browser in private browsing mode.  Email, documents, financial
>> transactions, etc could all be "saved" locally then later thrown away before
>> they've had a chance to sync to a server.
>
> The same argument could be made for retaining cookies set during private
> browsing ;-)

I do agree that the difference is subtle. But I do think there is a
general perception that cookies are more volatile than localStorage.
In fact, I think localStorage was invented partially because of this.

Additionally, while there isn't much we can do to fix the volatileness
of cookies, I do think we can try to make localStorage better.

/ Jonas