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Hi! I've installed Orion today and I'm loving everything about it.

I was hoping to suggest a feature, or rather a small change (at least from the user perpective). Safari (and Orion) do not share a session between tabs in a private window. This means when logging in a tab, opening up a link on that same page in a new tab will not have the user logged in.

It'd be great to have an option to have a shared session in the same window, even when private browsing. This could, potentially, be a setting, since there's probably people that prefer the original behavior.

Thanks and keep up the great work!

    7 months later

    Brief Summary
    If I open private window and login into a website, then I should be logged into that website on other private tabs too.

    Details:
    So this is basically a carry from Safari. All other browsers share session info across tabs in private windows. In Chrome, Firefox etc., if you login into a website, e.g., Reddit, in one tab in a private window, then you remain logged into other tabs in the private window too. However, Safari (and by inheritance Orion) does not follow this. In Orion, logins/session information is not shared across tabs. So let's say I am browsing Reddit in a private window and want to open another tab to do a search, I would need to login again in this new private tab instead of sharing the session across tabs.

    This isn't a bug but a design choice by Apple that I personally don't like. I am sure there are people who see benefit in this approach. However, Chrome, Firefox etc. they all follow the other approach. I think this might be Apple just trying to be Apple and "being different" just for the sake of it.

    Also not sure how easy/hard it is to manage this.

    • Vlad replied to this.

      @vkt well I really don't think its apple because .. I mean .. wheres the 'private' in 'private' naturally

      but anyhow i'll let others especially vlad really decide about this tho and whatever they actually do I won't complain about :-)

        vkt

        Apple just trying to be Apple and "being different" just for the sake of it.

        This has nothing to do with this and IMO has to do with Apple simply taking privacy more seriously than Google. I personally like this behavior compared to Chromium browsers and also find it technically superior.

        This makes every private tab its own private container basically, which feels like the right implementation of privacy (what Chromium does is shares information between tabs in private window, which definetely is not privacy respecting - it can be more practical, yes, but that is what normal tabs are for).

        I understand your preference, but until we have 25 people in our team to be able to make things like this an option we are going to stick with current implementation.

            (don't mind if I am just 'openly ranting to noone at all' here. feel free to disregard this message anytime)
            mm I thought as much regarding that private means isolated otherwise just exactly what is "private" if everything is shared aka you indeed may just as well as already be using normal mode as theres nothing privy anymore

              a month later
              Merged 5 posts from Shared session across tabs in a private window.
                3 months later

                The lack of this feature means I end up using a different browser (Chrome) when I need to use a Private Window. It is holding out my ability to switch to Orion as a single browser.

                While I agree having each tab be its own session is the technically more "private" option, in terms of use case, this is missing the forest for the trees. More often that not, I want session sharing (for example, logging into a website and then opening links from that website in a new tab. Such new tabs I would expect to share a session).

                @Vlad what are your thoughts on mainting sessions per Private Window instead of per Private Tab?

                • Vlad replied to this.

                  CyberArchon Private tabs are more powerful and more privacy respecting. It is also the way Safari has executed this. Tabs that leak data between each other in a private window are a completely flawed execution for something called 'private'.

                  For session sharing in closed/different context Profiles may be a better solution.

                      Vlad

                      Private tabs are more powerful

                      Depends on what dimension you measure this. For my use case, what I'm really looking for is a private session, and is what I consider more powerful for my use case. Chrome works like this.

                      flawed execution for something called 'private'.

                      I believe this is semantics. "Private Window" vs "Private Tab". When I hear private window (as the feature is called in Orion) then my belief is the scope of privacy should be at the window level not the tab level.

                      At the very least, can it be considered to have an option to share session data between private tabs (only for the life of the window -- not indefinitely!)

                          The current behavior also leads to slight inconsistencies. If you are logged in to a website in a private tab (e.g. reddit), and you command-click on a comments link, it takes you to a fresh private tab. but if you just normally click on comments, then reddit opens up in a new tab with the same session

                          • Vlad replied to this.
                            13 days later

                            CyberArchon With 2000 other open issues, we are satisfied with being on par with the reference browser by the OS manufacturer and respecting HIG. There will be time and place to go beyond that just not now.

                                3 months later

                                CyberArchon This means that Safari (and Orion) differentiate between when a new tab is initiated by a website (ie you left-click a target="_blank" link that opens in a new tab) vs when a new tab is initiated by a user (you command-click to force the link to open in a new tab).

                                If the user initiates the new tab, it won't carry over the session. If the website initiates the new tab, it will. At least that's what I've been able to gather.

                                Also, I just want to chime in here, as session-shared across different Private tabs is a feature that I am looking for (moving from Chrome to Orion).

                                While I ultimately agree that the current behavior of Private tabs (which matches the behavior of Safari Private tabs) is superior in terms of privacy, I do still wish this was a setting that could be toggled to change this behavior. It's not high priority for me, it just means I'll continue to use Chromium for private sessions, and Orion for everything else. Not the biggest deal.

                                • Vlad replied to this.

                                    dannb Another way is to just make a 'private' profile in Orion and set it to auto delete cookies on exit etc.

                                        Vlad Great tip. I haven't played around with profiles yet. Sounds like this may do exactly what I want. Thanks!

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