Merged 2 posts from Privacy button private mode indication.
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Visual distinction between private and non-private windows
Vlad I should be clearer. I had one window from each browser open. All of them were in private browsing mode. For Safari, Chrome, Firefox, I can easily tell I’m in private browsing mode since there is visual indication in the UI (label or icon). However, I cannot tell that Orion is in private browsing mode by looking at its single window.
4 months later
- Edited
Vlad I think a little color is always nice, like the purple on this page. Brave has the most visually aesthetic private mode I've seen, but it may not be for everyone. I like minimalism, but a little color is cool, IMO.
There have been times I was in private mode with Orion and didn't realize it. I think with heavy usage it become clearer, but it's not intuitive at first, unless looking for changes.
5 days later
TechEnthusiast note that Orion shows a lot of content in the start page (unlike brave in your screenshot). Orion follows Safari here and macOS way of doing things (minimal design).
Vlad Ahh that would explain why I didn't notice I was in private mode as I have my start page set to open to an empty page. I guess I haven't used Private mode in Safari long enough to notice the similarities.
TechEnthusiast You should still see a banner on top that says you are in private mode? if not it is a bug and we should fix it (if new tab set to empty page)
Vlad You know, I never noticed it doesn't say "private." I look for color cues. Here is what a new tab page looks like for me.
And this is what a private tab looks like for me
Very slight color difference at the top. Also "search or enter website name appears twice. I've seen this before. Figured it was just a minor bug, not worth reporting, but seems it only appears in private mode, not non-private. I can't remember if that was always the case.
Also, if window is not maximized, the words run over each other, like this
TechEnthusiast These are two bugs we will fix them.
8 days later
a year later
Just wanted to add that for time tracking applications (such as Timing.app), the full webpage title and URL of the active tab in a Private window is currently being shown and thus being reported to these apps. As much of a privacy concern as this is, at least if the window has a slight modification such as appending (Private) to the title, it could be filtered out.
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