On 6/17/24 15:29, Pranjal Singh wrote:

Hi,

I am trying to modify the Firefox desktop icon so that it opens
an incognito window by default.

...

What I've done is changing /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop:

- Exec=firefox %u
+ Exec=firefox -private-window %u

I also created a desktop file in ~/.local/share/applications, but
that too didn't work.

How didn't it work? Did it run regular Firefox, or not run at all?

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On 17 Jun 2024, at 20:45, Pranjal Singh <[email protected]> wrote:


Hi,

I am trying to modify the Firefox desktop icon so that it opens
an incognito window by default.

...

- Exec=firefox %u
+ Exec=firefox -private-window %u

Assuming that's not a typo, please try:

--private-window

(NB two hyphens at the beginning)

This works for me on Mate.
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<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div dir="ltr"></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"></div><blockquote type="cite">On 17 Jun 2024, at 20:45, Pranjal Singh &lt;
[email protected]&gt; wrote:<br><br></blockquote></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr">



<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">


<p><font size="4" face="monospace">Hi,</font></p>
<p><font size="4" face="monospace">I am trying to modify the Firefox
desktop icon so that it opens<br>
an incognito window by default.<br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="monospace" size="4">...</font></p>
<p><font size="4" face="monospace">- Exec=firefox %u<br>
+ Exec=firefox -private-window %u</font></p></div></blockquote><br><div>Assuming that's not a typo, please try:</div><div><br></div><div>--private-window</div><div><br></div><div>(NB two hyphens at the beginning)</div><div><br></div><div>This
works for me on Mate.</div></body></html> --Apple-Mail-4DFC6773-CED4-48DA-8E74-6EDF8A88B0B8--

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On Thu, Jun 20, 2024 at 22:56:33 +0530, Pranjal Singh wrote:

It runs regular Firefox after adding the -private-window flag.

To get a MWE, I made these changes later:
- Exec=firefox -private-window %u
- StartupWMClass=firefox
+Exec=gnome-calculator

Did you see Gareth's reply at <https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2024/06/msg00432.html>?

It's supposed to be --private-window with two leading hyphens, not one,
he said.

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On Tue, Jun 18, 2024 at 01:38:00AM +0100, Gareth Evans wrote:

On 17 Jun 2024, at 20:45, Pranjal Singh <[email protected]> wrote:


Hi,

I am trying to modify the Firefox desktop icon so that it opens
an incognito window by default.

...

- Exec=firefox %u
+ Exec=firefox -private-window %u

Assuming that's not a typo, please try:

--private-window

Yep. Asking firefox itself (firefox --help) confirms that the
option wants two dashes.

Cheers
--
t

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On Thu, Jun 20, 2024 at 02:10:38PM -0400, Jeffrey Walton wrote:

On Tue, Jun 18, 2024 at 12:23 AM Gareth Evans <[email protected]> wrote:

On 17 Jun 2024, at 20:45, Pranjal Singh <[email protected]> wrote:

I am trying to modify the Firefox desktop icon so that it opens
an incognito window by default.
...

- Exec=firefox %u
+ Exec=firefox -private-window %u

Assuming that's not a typo, please try:

--private-window

(NB two hyphens at the beginning)

This works for me on Mate.

According to Mozilla documentation at <https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/CommandLineOptions>, it is one
hyphen, not two.

And according to "firefox --help" it's two, not one. Never trust the
internet, I s'ppose :-)

Cheers
--
t

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Greg Wooledge <[email protected]> wrote:

On Thu, Jun 20, 2024 at 22:56:33 +0530, Pranjal Singh wrote:

It runs regular Firefox after adding the -private-window flag.

To get a MWE, I made these changes later:
- Exec=firefox -private-window %u
- StartupWMClass=firefox
+Exec=gnome-calculator

Did you see Gareth's reply at <https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2024/06/msg00432.html>?

It's supposed to be --private-window with two leading hyphens, not
one, he said.

He was wrong according to Mozilla's documentation.

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<[email protected]> wrote:

On Tue, Jun 18, 2024 at 01:38:00AM +0100, Gareth Evans wrote:

On 17 Jun 2024, at 20:45, Pranjal Singh
<[email protected]> wrote:


Hi,

I am trying to modify the Firefox desktop icon so that it opens
an incognito window by default.

...

- Exec=firefox %u
+ Exec=firefox -private-window %u

Assuming that's not a typo, please try:

--private-window

Yep. Asking firefox itself (firefox --help) confirms that the
option wants two dashes.

See https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/CommandLineOptions#-private-window

or just try it! It works pefectly well with a single hyphen.

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Assuming that's not a typo, please try:

--private-window

Yep. Asking firefox itself (firefox --help) confirms that the
option wants two dashes.

See https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/CommandLineOptions#-private-window

or just try it! It works pefectly well with a single hyphen.

It seems to work either way, with firefox-esr 115.12.0esr-1~deb12u1 .
I tested with <firefox --private-window https://www.debian.org/>
and <firefox -private-window https://www.debian.org/>.

So... in that case, we don't know why the OP's thing isn't working.
Something something desktop blah blah. Try to find a log file where
you can see what's wrong. If it's not a DE, you might be able to
find logs in ~/.xsession-errors but with a Fancy Desktop Environment,
the logs could be *anywhere*. Or nowhere.

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On Thu, Jun 20, 2024 at 09:33:22PM +0100, Brad Rogers wrote:

[...]

This is (one) reason why using undocumented features is a Bad Thing™.

It doesn't seem to be "undocumented": on the contrary, it's rather "overdocumented" (two different ways in two different places), but
thanks to some intrepid users in this thread we do know that both
ways work.

In Greg's words, it seems to be something something desktop.

Cheers
--
t

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On 20 Jun 2024, at 20:52, [email protected] wrote:
Greg Wooledge <[email protected]> wrote:

On Thu, Jun 20, 2024 at 22:56:33 +0530, Pranjal Singh wrote:

It runs regular Firefox after adding the -private-window flag.

To get a MWE, I made these changes later:
- Exec=firefox -private-window %u
- StartupWMClass=firefox
+Exec=gnome-calculator

Did you see Gareth's reply at
<https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2024/06/msg00432.html>?

It's supposed to be --private-window with two leading hyphens, not
one, he said.

He was wrong according to Mozilla's documentation

My advice was based on

$ firefox -h | grep private
--private-window <url> Open <url> in a new private window.
$

I did try (with Mate Desktop) with both single and double hyphens, both on the command line and in

/usr/share/applications/firefox-esr.desktop

One hyphen failed to have the desired effect, but works when I try it now. Firefox hasn't been updated here since, so there seem to be other variables involved.

I would be inclined to take it from the firefox help grep results above that the double-hyphen form should always work.

I think the wiki is out of date - cf.

"-private
Opens Firefox in permanent private browsing mode ...

-private-window
Opens a new private browsing window in an existing instance of Firefox ..."

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/CommandLineOptions#Command_line_options

There is no "[-]-private" option according to the grep I performed, and [-]-private produces a non-private window when run here from the command line.

$ apt policy firefox-esr
firefox-esr:
Installed: 115.12.0esr-1~deb12u1
Candidate: 115.12.0esr-1~deb12u1
Version table:
*** 115.12.0esr-1~deb12u1 500
500 https://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security/main amd64 Packages
[...]

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