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Internet Explorer 8 to take web browsing off the record
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source: microsoft
Anyone who shares a computer with family, friends or coworkers has likely wished to erase their web browsing tracks at one time or another. Maybe you've viewed some adult content (for research, naturally), or you've been researching a present for your spouse, and you want to keep your web travels on the down low.
Over the past couple of years, web browsers have gotten better at making it easy for us to erase our browser histories and to dump our web cookies in order to achieve this sort of privacy. Usually though, these web browser privacy features throw out nonsensitive, potentially useful, data along with the bits you'd like to dismiss.
Certain cookies keep track of our online shopping carts, and save us from typing in our passwords, and browser histories are often useful to consult. And if you're out to hide your tracks from your fellow computer users, a bone-dry browser history is probably going to arose some suspicion.
Enter Microsoft and its upcoming Internet Explorer 8, which will include a couple of new features intended to address these selective blocking scenarios: InPrivate Browsing and Delete Browsing History.
InPrivate Browsing swings into action when you launch, from IE's menu, an InPrivate Browsing window. You simply turn to this new, clearly marked window, and browse away. Once you've closed this window, none of the history, cookies, temporary Internet files, or other data associated with your browsing session will live on.
Delete Browsing History is a lighter measure, as it doesn't require launching a special new window. Instead, you get to delete selectively individual history items, in addition to the en masse deletion that IE 7 made possible.
I've seen both of these feature demoed, and they work pretty smoothly. Beta two of Internet Explorer 8 will be accessible before too much longer, and you'll be able to test them out yourselves.
It's important to note that these new privacy features won't hide your web travels from anyone with upstream access to your Internet connection, so if your employer wishes to see where you've been browsing, they can do it whether or not the InPrivate label is in effect.
Another, possibly easier overall method of keeping your shared computer doings from the eyes of your family and roommates is to maintain separate accounts for each user, and toss in a locked-down account for guests.
I've gone both the shared and individual account routes in my own home. Since IE8 will run only on Windows, it's not going to work for my computer at home.
Does InPrivate appeal to you? What steps do you take to keep individual information and settings individual on your shared computers?
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