The New Browser's Private Browsering Settings
Posted by Wade Burchette at 9:00 AM Privacy
On March 5, 2009 Microsoft unveiled Internet Explorer 8 and it featured an option called InPrivate browsing. On July 1, 2009, Mozilla released FireFox 3.5 which also featured an option just like InPrivate browsing but they simply call it private browsing. Google's Chrome browser also has this, but calls it Incognito mode. However, they all received the idea from Apple's Safari browser which had this feature for a long time. These features allow you to browse the internet but when you are done, all traces of your browsing are deleted.
Are you really completely private when you use these browser settings? No. Even though for most people private browsing is good enough, it does not mask the data to and from the internet. Furthermore, once the private browsing session terminates, the history and cache is not securely deleted. And nothing is going to stop monitoring programs installed on your computers. (Note: there are legal monitoring programs and this is not spyware.)
While private browsing does have benefits, you should not rely on it make you anonymous. The methods to make you anonymous are much difficult. Furthermore, private browsing does not protect you against security exploits.