The next version of Internet Explorer (IE8) includes a new security feature which enables you to surf without leaving a trace in your local computer. The second beta of Internet Explorer 8, which was released yesterday, has a security feature called "InPrivate Browsing" which prevents user’s history, cookies and other data from being saved on the user’s computer.
"Have you ever wanted to take your web browsing "off the record"? Perhaps you’re using someone else’s computer and you don’t want them to know which sites you visited" says Internet Explorer Product Manager, Andrew Ziegler in his blog post.
All major browsers (including IE7 and Firefox 3) have an option to erase the history, but now and then you might want to retain information of your browsing history while preventing sensitive stuff from getting logged into the browser history, this is where InPrivate Browsing comes in handy.
Besides letting users anonymously surf, IE8 can also build up a list of websites to block or allow InPrivate subscriptions. This way, users can automatically prevent some specific sites from getting into the history. The number one reason why users want to clear the history is to weed out the signs of p*rn from their browser. Such a subscription based history blocking feature might actually benefit to p*rn viewers.
There is already a similar extension for Firefox - Stealther extension. Although, it’s not as superior as IE8’s new inbuilt feature, it does the job. You can download IE8 Beta 2 from here.
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wrote, on August 28th, 2008
I read about the PrivateBrowsing at techiebuzz, glad to hear more details about it hear. Sounds interesting, I wish they would come out with something like this for firefox, it is much faster.
wrote, on August 28th, 2008
Oh and when I mentioned I wish they had something of the sort for firefox, I meant something built in, something besides the stealther extension.
wrote, on August 28th, 2008
I know a lot of office workers who are going to be very pleased withthis feature.
Personally I prefer firefox.
wrote, on August 28th, 2008
This could be the start of IE’s push to dominate FF, while I think it will take much more than P*rn mode surfing anonymity, it definitely is a shot across the bow at FF.
wrote, on August 29th, 2008
Good feature for noobs though. Well, happy to see you posting again.
wrote, on August 29th, 2008
This is actually good strategy to keep IE alive and Google on its toes. Will benefit all of us!
wrote, on August 29th, 2008
Nice to see you back and blogging. I hope that you are completely alright now. All the best.
wrote, on August 30th, 2008
[...] A new notable feature added to this version is InPrivate browsing which enables us to browse the websites anonymously without leaving any trace of us on the site. You could read more about this feature here at Tech Buzz. [...]
wrote, on August 31st, 2008
This will probably have a security exploit as well, isnt MS famous for that? Besides this is probably the only saving grace about IE8
wrote, on September 1st, 2008
All this doesn´t realy sound new to me. I can do all of that in Opera allready… I wont use IE anyway so i dont care much for it
wrote, on September 1st, 2008
Oh, first time heard IE8 has such improvement, and I will try soon, thanks for telling!
wrote, on September 2nd, 2008
A guy at work was talking about this. This seems like a good idea on paper, but can really cause problems for applications that want to use cookies. I really don’t see this being too useful besides when you use somebody else’s computer.
wrote, on September 2nd, 2008
Well I’m not a huge IE fan, but I think the security feature on IE8 is a brilliant idea.
wrote, on September 5th, 2008
Suprised at MS for introducing this feature before anyone else but I guess it keeps them ahead of the game.
wrote, on September 8th, 2008
Don’t let my teenage daughter see this post, she would love to keep her browsing habits safe from her parents!
wrote, on September 11th, 2008
Great feature from IE8, I wonder if IE8 will be a great success though all-in-all.
wrote, on September 14th, 2008
Well, I would say that this new version of IE has been installed on my dual core Vista powered notebook, and the performance is no where near Firefox or Google Chrome. The Inprivate browsing feature is good, but the program is HIGHLY unstable, which eventually makes this browser unusable (even for porn, per se!). Microsoft is a good imitator of other products, but it should also invest some time in making its products as stable as their counterparts.
wrote, on September 24th, 2008
But I am sure that still you can trace out . But this is not enough to compete with firefox. Wake up Microsoft…this is not enough.
wrote, on September 29th, 2008
For a long time, Safari had this feature inbuilt.
Now, Safari for Windows also comes with this feature giving more reasons for Microsoft to build their IE8 with that.
From what I’ve seen, IE8 is a mix of mistakes that Microsoft had corrected in their Internet Explorer for a long time since the evolution of Firefox and Safari.
wrote, on December 20th, 2008
guys..
can i ask something?
what is stealther extension?
kinda blur
thx
=)
wrote, on May 6th, 2009
Thanks for this good information, I like this feature but It was already available with safari browser