Tag Archives: InPrivate
Reviewing the “Privacy Mode” Browser Debate
Posted on 09. Aug, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 
0 Comments
ArsTechnica has an excellent article discussing a Stanford research project that was conducted regarding browser “privacy” modes. In Chrome, this is called Incognito mode. For Firefox, it is called Private Browsing. In Internet Explorer it’s called InPrivate. Despite the label for it, this method of using the web is a bit misleading by claiming it offers protections against companies mining data from browsing.
We’ve got to step back and look at this from a different perspective here: when we are browsing the internet, we’re leaking data about ourselves all over the place. The web is a two way street: from the moment you start using it you are inputting data about yourself. You open a browser – regardless of the mode – and you start searching, logging in to services and clicking on links.
A major problem also appears to be add-ons and extensions in the browser, since they are capable of saving data themselves. I had previously talked about Google being very careful to look over extensions before adding them to the Official Extensions site, but perhaps they are only concerned about extensions that have potential elevation privileges that can attack a PC.
So perhaps in all of this internet business we have lost an element of privacy. There is still some degree of anonymity, but it may not last much longer. Some believe we should get rid of all anonymous use of the internet in order to legitimize it – but can that really be done?
Firefox Lorentz Emulates Chrome’s Stability Features
Posted on 09. Apr, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments
ReadWriteWeb is reporting that the beta of Firefox 3.6.3, dubbed Lorentz, is testing a new feature in the browser where plugins are isolated by tab in the event that it crashes. This allows for a singular unstable tab to crash instead of the whole browser. This may sound familiar to those who use Chrome, and will be a new feature in a future stable release of Firefox.
What’s funny is that rival browsers are making no bones about taking Google’s browser ideas and turning them into their own. Microsoft’s IE8 InPrivate, which is the same thing as Chrome’s Incognito mode, comes to mind. Witness the crash screen in Lorentz compared to Chrome’s:
Heading down this path is great for browsers overall, but it seems funny at times when you see competing browsers copying Chrome’s functions in order to keep up with its frenetic pace of development. Indeed, Chrome has quickly gone from version 1.0 in 2008 to 4.0 stable a few months ago.
One of the reasons for early adoption has been Google’s decision to auto-update Chrome. While initially this was heavily criticized, you can see here how fast Chrome has migrated to newer versions because of this functionality:
While Firefox also pushes updates, users are prompted to install them. This may be less obtrusive in terms of privacy than Chrome, and still allows for a regular schedule of updates to the browser:
Microsoft does not prompt for IE updates leaving some users still stuck on IE6, although that metric is slowly changing:
You can try out the new Firefox Lorentz by downloading it from here. Lorentz only isolates QuickTime, Flash, and Silverlight as their own processes. You can, however, customize it to do so for other plugins such as Adobe Reader through these instructions.
Microsoft Takes Issue With Chrome Feature That Can be Turned Off
Posted on 01. Apr, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 1 Comments
In a video that is meant to show off the security features of Internet Explorer 8, Product Manager Pete LePage takes aim at the Chrome browser, claiming that because IE8 allows users to search in a separate box rather than doing so in an all-in-one inbox box that Google is possibly compromising a user’s security by reporting every term back to Google.
“By keeping these boxes separate, your privacy is better protected and the addresses of the sites you’re visiting aren’t automatically shared with Microsoft, or anyone else,” LePage says in the video.
“As I start to type an address into the address bar, Fiddler [a Web debugging proxy] shows that for nearly every character I type, Chrome sends a request back to Google,” LePage says. “I haven’t even hit enter yet to load the website and Google is already getting information about the domain and sites I’m visiting.”
This only partially true. You are capable of changing your search provider in Chrome, and when you do the information that you search for in the Omnibox will send it back to the engine of your choosing. Just because IE8 has two separate boxes for these functions does not make it safer.
The option for sending information back to Google when you start typing into the Omnibox can be turned off by following these instructions. I know this because I downloaded Fiddler myself and tried it to make sure.
LePage also goes on to promote the virtues of IE8′s InPrivate feature, which allows users to surf the web anonymously. Interestingly, this feature sounds eerily similar to Chrome’s Incognito mode which has been a part of Google’s browser since 2008.
Look, there’s no doubt here that Internet Explorer is facing a decline in market share. A recent graph out by Net Applications shows that Internet Explorer is dropping while Chrome is gaining. At the same time, competitors like Safari (which can be traced to Mac adoption), Firefox and Opera are filling in the space where users once had Internet Explorer as their preferred browser. If Microsoft does not go on the offensive with videos like this they risk losing even more market share.
Expect Microsoft to heavily market IE8 and eventually IE9. They will also do well if they keep copying key elements of other popular browsers if they hope to stay relevant, one of the other “industry standard” practices LePage talks about in the video.
