Firefox private bowsing - tabs and start page

I have a couple questions about Firefox private browsing. I use a shortcut to open Firefox directly in private browsing mode:

"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -private

Every time I open in private mode, it defaults to the purple default private browsing notice page. Is there any way to get it to open in my default home page?

Also, when I open new tabs in private mode, do those new tabs also open in private mode? I should think it would, but I came across an add-on for Firefox called "Private Tabs" that claims to open all tabs in private mode, which I thought happened automatically? So then are the new tabs not i private mode? I though any tabs openedd in a private window would automatically be private.

A browser's private mode is not built to be a user's main source of browsing the internet. Instead, private modes are meant for a one-time use key that is erased after each session.

If you could customize the private section, it would defeat some of the purpose of it.

To my knowledge, no web browser has customization settings that remain when swapping over to a private session. You could try Firefox's new and improved browser though!

rivre said:

I have a couple questions about Firefox private browsing. I use a shortcut to open Firefox directly in private browsing mode:

"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -private

Every time I open in private mode, it defaults to the purple default private browsing notice page. Is there any way to get it to open in my default home page?

add -window plus url to your string above.

Example: "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -private-window http://www.somewhere.com/

rivre said:

Also, when I open new tabs in private mode, do those new tabs also open in private mode? I should think it would, but I came across an add-on for Firefox called "Private Tabs" that claims to open all tabs in private mode, which I thought happened automatically? So then are the new tabs not i private mode? I though any tabs openedd in a private window would automatically be private.

All tabs will be private.

Masterchiefxx17 said:

A browser's private mode is not built to be a user's main source of browsing the internet. Instead, private modes are meant for a one-time use key that is erased after each session.

If you could customize the private section, it would defeat some of the purpose of it.

To my knowledge, no web browser has customization settings that remain when swapping over to a private session. You could try Firefox's new and improved browser though!

I'm not sure what you said is true regarding private mode not intended to be used regularly. I'm betting lots of people use it regularly for their normal browsing sessions. Why would it not be used for regular browsing? And Chrome lets you use your normal home page in incognito mode.

I'm using Firefox's new browser. It broke a nice selection of my favorite add-ons today.

rivre said:

Thanks, but that doesn't seem to work for me. I have a shortcut and this is what is in "Target":

"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -private-window Google

But it still just loads to the purple private browsing page.

Strange!

Works here.

Edwin said:

Strange!

Works here.

Yeah, I got it working. I have no idea why it wasn't working at first. Maybe it's this new build of Firefox. Thanks again for your help!

rivre said:

Yeah, I got it working. I have no idea why it wasn't working at first. Maybe it's this new build of Firefox. Thanks again for your help!

Is it normal for each tab to flash purple when it's first opened in private mode? Firefox never did that before, nor did I ever see that purple "mask" icon in the corner before. Really weird. It used to just open the browser to that first main purple page, but each tab I would open afterwards would look normal with no purple page beforehand. Was I always doing it wrong before? Even today after I updated to v57 Firefox wasn't acting like this until I put that extra string in my shortcut.