Bug 1004419 - about:newtab doesn't show thumbnails
Summary: about:newtab doesn't show thumbnails
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED EOL
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: firefox
Version: 19
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Unspecified
unspecified
unspecified
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Jan Horak
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2013-09-04 15:17 UTC by Alberto Ruiz
Modified: 2015-02-17 17:03 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2015-02-17 17:03:58 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)
Screenshot attached (some thumbnails blurred for privacy issues) (328.37 KB, image/png)
2013-09-04 15:17 UTC, Alberto Ruiz
no flags Details

Description Alberto Ruiz 2013-09-04 15:17:05 UTC
Created attachment 793728 [details]
Screenshot attached (some thumbnails blurred for privacy issues)

Description of problem:

about:newtab doesn't fill the thumbnail 


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):


How reproducible:

Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open the about:newtab page after using firefox for a while (visiting several webpages)

Actual results:
The boxes and the web names are there and you can click, but the screenshot/thumbnail of each webpage is not shown on all pages.

Expected results:
Every box/shortcut should have a thumbnail of the webpage

Additional info:

Comment 1 Jan Horak 2013-09-10 15:17:06 UTC
This turns to be actually a feature rather than bug. 
I was able to reproduce this problem with few sites, the reason is that they send Cache-control: no-store in http header even if storing the page in cache wouldn't be a threat to user privacy. However there are sites which send same header and making thumbnail of would show private data (like paypal.com).

See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=754608 for details.

Testing today's trunk seems to fix this problem. I can't find the relevant bug thought, maybe: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=912763

Comment 2 Alberto Ruiz 2013-09-11 08:48:12 UTC
Would it be possible to show a snapshot from a Private Window session, or a dummy profile with no access to the credentials?

Another alternative is showing some sort if icon/watermark with a lock or some other suitable metaphor so that the user at least has a hint on what is going on.

I will request some feedback from Alan and Mairin.

Comment 3 Jan Horak 2013-09-11 09:42:48 UTC
(In reply to Alberto Ruiz from comment #2)
> Would it be possible to show a snapshot from a Private Window session, or a
> dummy profile with no access to the credentials?

This is what currently nightly is doing. For example for gmail the login screen is shown as thumbnail instead of screenshot of mailbox (they doing it by disabling cookies when generating thumbnails). 

It is implemented as background thumbnail downloader which is currently enabled only for nightly because it's still considered as immature. I see one drawback here, everytime browser starts thumbnails are refreshed on background. This brings additional data to download which I would say is not suitable for mobile connections. I hope mozilla will address it before it goes to release.

Comment 4 Jan Horak 2013-09-11 09:45:15 UTC
Currently we can focus on how to preset newtab page with Fedora bookmarks/Fedora homepage for new profiles to allow to replace Fedora homepage with about:newtab.

Comment 5 Alberto Ruiz 2013-09-11 11:54:44 UTC
(In reply to Jan Horak from comment #4)
> Currently we can focus on how to preset newtab page with Fedora
> bookmarks/Fedora homepage for new profiles to allow to replace Fedora
> homepage with about:newtab.

Sounds like a plan.

Comment 6 Alberto Ruiz 2013-09-11 11:56:55 UTC
(In reply to Jan Horak from comment #3)
> (In reply to Alberto Ruiz from comment #2)
> > Would it be possible to show a snapshot from a Private Window session, or a
> > dummy profile with no access to the credentials?
> 
> This is what currently nightly is doing. For example for gmail the login
> screen is shown as thumbnail instead of screenshot of mailbox (they doing it
> by disabling cookies when generating thumbnails). 
> 
> It is implemented as background thumbnail downloader which is currently
> enabled only for nightly because it's still considered as immature. I see
> one drawback here, everytime browser starts thumbnails are refreshed on
> background. This brings additional data to download which I would say is not
> suitable for mobile connections. I hope mozilla will address it before it
> goes to release.

IMHO thumbnails for sites marked as "secure" should not be refreshed on a constant basis (maybe once a month or something like that, sites don't update their logged out frontpages that often). For other sites they should only be updated when you log in again.

Comment 7 Fedora End Of Life 2015-01-09 19:43:36 UTC
This message is a notice that Fedora 19 is now at end of life. Fedora 
has stopped maintaining and issuing updates for Fedora 19. It is 
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longer maintained. Approximately 4 (four) weeks from now this bug will
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Comment 8 Fedora End Of Life 2015-02-17 17:03:58 UTC
Fedora 19 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2015-01-06. Fedora 19 is
no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further
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