Going ‘Incognito’

Forbes.com

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But given all those complications and ambiguities in browsers' privacy settings, the best solution may be a browser with no built-in privacy functions at all: Firefox. Instead of offering its own stealth feature, Firefox allows users to add whatever privacy plug-ins have been created by its open-source developer base. An add-on called Distrust works much like Safari's Private Browsing, erasing browsing evidence from a user's computer. Another, called Adblock Plus, nixes all the ads on a page, along with any cookies they try to send. And a third, CookieSafe, allows users to block any object from specific domains, just as Microsoft's InPrivate Blocking does.

Microsoft's Hachamovitch argues that the average user won't bother with all those plug-ins. "When people get a browser, are they do-it-yourselfers or do they want it to just work?" He asks. "IE8 just works out of the box. It's real protection for real people."

Then again, installing a few plug-ins may be the price users pay for complete anonymity online. And when it comes to the secretive side of Web browsing, even so-called "real people" are known to do very strange things.

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Posted By: n79q.com @ 01/02/2009 11:36:21 PM

thanks alot
http://www.n79q.com/vb/index.php
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Posted By: wasaywasay @ 09/07/2008 8:33:04 AM

"And yes, practically everyone else calls it "Porn Mode.""

Oh, come on. To cavalierly suggest that the need for privacy is an excuse for porn viewing is simply offensive. For one thing, where's your evidence that it is? For another, privacy is fundamental--and it should be served by browser developers seriously. Now that begs a question: What need is privacy in browser design? Well, one visit to an Internet cafe should answer that.

Now that IE8 has InPrivate and Chrome has Incognito, I hope Opera comes up with one too, and soon. And, oh, it should call it Phantom of the Opera.
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Posted By: burbank @ 09/06/2008 3:48:34 AM

The information that data minning companys already have on the average american is astounding. That anyone can gather such information under the guise of "marketing research" proves PT Barnum's maxim that a sucker is born every minute. We as americans say we want privacy and believe we have it, but such is not the case. Don't believe it? Just goggle your own name and see just what others can find out about you. And that's just the private sector. The government has a far more nebulous system for gathering information. The point that I'm trying to make is that privacy is just that-private. And the only way that someone else should have access to our personal information is by getting permission from the individual who is the subject of the query first.