Kagi Search Extension Login Token Fails in Private Browsing with Privacy Pass Extension Installed

stone

Summary:
Having both the Kagi Search for Firefox extension and the Kagi Privacy Pass extension enabled in Firefox causes private browsing windows to fail in recognizing the login token set in the Kagi search extension. Instead of returning search results, Kagi redirects to the sign-in page.

Steps to Reproduce:

Install both the Kagi Search and Kagi Privacy Pass extensions in Firefox.
Log into Kagi in a standard browsing window, ensuring the login token is stored.
Open a private browsing window and attempt to use Kagi search.
Observe that Kagi redirects to the sign-in page instead of showing search results.
Restart Firefox completely and try again—issue persists.
Disable the Privacy Pass extension and retry private browsing; in some cases, the issue persists even with Privacy Pass disabled.
Uninstall Privacy Pass, restart the browser, and test again—search starts working in private browsing.

Observed Behavior:

With both extensions installed, private browsing windows fail to use the login token, requiring users to sign in again.
Disabling Privacy Pass does not immediately resolve the issue.
Uninstalling Privacy Pass and restarting Firefox allows private browsing to work properly again.

Environment Details:

Browser: Mozilla Firefox (latest update)
Extensions Involved:
Kagi Search for Firefox
Kagi Privacy Pass
Mode: Private browsing
Issue onset: Within the last 48 hours for multiple users (ever since the Feb. 27th changelog release)

Additional Notes:

If users disable Privacy Pass but do not uninstall it, the issue may persist.
Uninstalling Privacy Pass and restarting Firefox seems to fully resolve the problem.
This issue has been reproduced by multiple users independently within the Discord ('stonewess' and 'overhash'.

Secondary Suggestion: Add an 'Extensions' topic for bug-reports

Expected Behavior:

Kagi should recognize the login token in private browsing windows and allow seamless searching without prompting for re-authentication.

fernandov

Hi @stone , apologies for the delay replying. I'm unable to reproduce the issue, see video. Did I follow the steps correctly?

boozer

Hi fernandov, I'll jump in since I'm experiencing this same issue with Firefox 136.0 on Linux.

While you tried to reproduce this issue on your video, seems like you didn't close all Firefox sessions after toggling the Privacy Pass authentication off. If you do this, and start a new session, this new private session won't log in with the session token when authentication via Privacy Pass is toggled off.

And in addition, if you delete all cookies and data when exiting Firefox (like I do), even the next new non-private Firefox session won't log in with the session token. At least this is what I'm experiencing at the moment.

Only disabling or removing Privacy Pass add-on seems to solve this issue.

1000Phoenix

I can confirm this is still an issue.

Having both Kagi's extension and Kagi Privacy Pass causes the private token to fail to save in the Kagi extension, requiring toggling private browing access on and off before it will save. The issue with this is that it also re-requires setting up the default browser every time, so is quite an effort.

Furthermore, when disabling the Privacy Pass extension and restarting the browser, the private token will once again save in the Kagi extension, showing it is an issue with having both extensions in the browser.

1000Phoenix

Over a month later, and this is still an issue. It's a shame to see the privacy pass was released, then seemingly just abandoned, without the basic feature of being able to use privacy pass in private browsing without needing to know the workaround of toggling the main Kagi extension's access to use private browsing on and off.

pixel

Hi @1000Phoenix,

Sorry for the delay. We have been working on fixing Privacy Pass related issues lately and have resolved some major ones over the past few weeks.
This one specifically is on the list and we will look into it soon!

boozer

Hi pixel,

This issue has been reported half a year ago, and it is still ongoing. Will this ever be fixed?

hsiktas

I see this (or a similar) issue on my side:

I have both "Kagi Search for Firefox" and "Kagi Privacy Pass" extensions installed
Privacy pass disabled:
- Search works in regular windows
- ⚡ redirect to login page in private windows ⚡
Privacy pass enabled:
- Search works in regular windows (no custom settings)
- Search works in private windows (no custom settings)

So, I think the Privacy Pass extension interferes with authentication in private windows, when Private Pass is disabled.

Possible workaround, but maybe out of scope of this issue: Auto-enable Privacy Pass for private windows only.