Browse The Web Without Leaving A Trace!

When you are using a public computer or a friend’s computer, sometimes you might not want to leave a record history of what you have been doing. And this might be because of the sensitivity of what you have been browsing for, or just for general security purposes on regards to information privacy. In order to facilitate this, you have to clear the browsing history and sometimes the cookies and cache of the browser.

This is usually very annoying, takes up time and by doing this you clear even some useful cookies that would otherwise support the general web surfing purposes and can prevent one from using a computer on web efficiently. Example if you are using friends computer, who might have visited some sites and you permanently erase all of his browsing history. This methods works, but in a way that it clears all the intended and unintended information. But there here is a solution to that.

In the newer version of web browsers, there is a new feature called Private Browsing. This feature is great and saves you a great deal of time and hassle.

Private Browsing is a new way of surfing the web without the computer storing any of the information, so that leaving a foot print of where and what you have been doing while surfing the web.

Why is In Private Browsing great?

In Private Browsing is a great feature because:

• Saves neither record nor keeps history of recently visited addresses.
• No more caching. Caching is never stored in a Private Browsing session.
• No more cookies. Cookies are temporary files which are used to track visitors.
• No download history. In Mozilla Firefox, the download history is not stored on the download history
• No more auto-complete or information on your forms from being stored.
• The greatest of them all is that In Private Browsing does not erase any previous browsing information and at the same time does it leave any trail.

How can I know I am browsing in In Private Browsing session?

Different web browsers have different ways of showing you that you are in Private browsing mode.

• In Internet Explorer, start a private browsing session by clicking on: Tools > InPrivate Browsing. You can see the mark next to the web address bar written: InPrivate, as shown in image below how to start a private InPrivate Browsing session and a browser which is InPrivate Browsing session.

Image showing an InPrivate Browsing session in Internet Explorer.

• In Mozilla Firefox, to start In Private Browsing session click on Tools > Start Private Browsing. One great feature of Mozilla Firefox is that it gives an option of storing all of the current tabs which user had been browsing.

• In Mac Safari it is called Private Browsing or Privacy Mode. To start a browsing session in Privacy Mode (Private Browse) go to Settings > Private Browsing as shown in images below.

IN Google Chrome private browsing is called Incognito mode, and to activate it go to Settings then New incognito window

Is In Private Browsing really private?

• Bookmarks Information will be stored if you bookmark any entries in bookmarks.
• In Private Browsing, makes user anonymous only on the computer, however it does not make user anonymous on the web. If any website which you are surfing are keeping a history of all user who visited their website In Private Browsing does not hide any information about you. In Private Browsing simply does not keep any records on your computer only.
• Any downloads saved on computer when you are browsing In Private Browsing session will not be deleted once you close the In Private Session. Hence, you can download any files and you can access them still after you close the In Private Browsing Session.

Different web browser use different terms to describe private browsing.

• In Mozilla Firefox is called Private Browsing. This feature was added since the release of version 3.5
• In Internet Explorer it is also called InPrivate Browsing. This feature was added in the release of  version 8 of IE.
• In Mac Safari it is called Private Browsing (Privacy Mode).
• In Google Chrome, in private browsing is known as Incognito.

Private Browsing is a feature which user can enjoy and make good use of it especially when visiting public computers.

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About the author:  Developer specialized in creating business applications with Oracle APEX and Java. An Expert in XML and XSLT programming. Read more from this author

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