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General discussion

In Private Browsing

Aug 28, 2010 4:23PM PDT

In Private Browsing -
[quote] InPrivate Browsing in Internet Explorer 8 helps prevent your browsing history, temporary Internet files, form data, cookies, and usernames and passwords from being retained by the browser, leaving no evidence of your browsing or search history.[/quote]source microsoft

Apparently lots of browsers (Firefox inter alia) offer Private Browsing.

My question is this:
what does it matter if there is a trace on my computer (which I'll erase later, in my case using CCleaner)...
unless other parties can access this data.

Can other parties (like Microsoft) access such data as browsing history from my computer?

Discussion is locked

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No
Aug 29, 2010 12:23AM PDT

No, and as you're starting to figure out, it's really kind of a pointless feature. It makes the tinfoil hat brigade feel better, but since it does absolutely nothing about the log of your activities on the server side, there's very little point to it.

The one minor benefit it has, is that since these things are generally never written to disk, there's no chance of a data recovery professional being able to recover it from your HDD. Using CCleaner, there is at least some chance someone could recover that data. But this assumes anyone gives a gerbil's **** about your particular browsing history. The odds are very much against that one.

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Private Browsing
Aug 29, 2010 12:38PM PDT

Thanks Jimmy ... figured it might be s/thing
like you describe. The next post pointed out
that with multiple users of one computer
s/one may wish to keep their browsing hstory
and cookies from other's view.
that also makes sense.

cheers

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To a point
Aug 29, 2010 10:56PM PDT

To a point, it does make sense. But in many of those cases it kind of seems to miss the mark IMO.

Why is a nosy roommate using your system? Why would you be browsing porn or doing anything on a work system that would necessitate this? If your girlfriend is rifling through your computer for evidence of porn, there's no trust in that relationship, so no real relationship.

In virtually every scenario where it may be used, there's a larger issue which undermines it.

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Underlying Issues
Aug 30, 2010 12:29PM PDT

Yes you're quite right about underlying issues.

For this user ... I'll simply ignore the 'private browsing' option
as it is irrelevant to me on all counts. I'm open to anyone seeing what I'm doing and where I've been.

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Re: inprivate browsing
Aug 29, 2010 12:30AM PDT

A common, although somewhat colloquial, synonym is "porn mode".

Makes some sense if you share a computer with somebody nosey enough to have a look at your cookies and temp files (such as roommate, parents, girlfriend, employer) and you forget to run ccleaner after a browsing session because you're in a hurry to leave.


Kees

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Private Browsing
Aug 29, 2010 12:43PM PDT

Thanks kees.
what you write makes sense.
Living alone with a one-person computer,
I hadn't thought of multiple users.
Ah tht false sense of privacy ...
just watched a movie "Erasing David"
an English film made last year about
this guy, David, goes out and finds all
the data Govts, companies etc have on him.
Boy ... it makes one want to be careful online...