IE8’s “InPrivate” browsing: About time or a bit over the top

Analysis
Aug 30, 20082 mins

It seems the newest Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 has made quite a stir this week. Many are dubbing it “InPrivate” filter as “Porn Mode”. This is a bit of a weird thing for me considering what has taken place over the past few years. Users have been crying out for more secure web browsing and with the eventuality of SaaS products this has become even more pertinent. Yet , Microsoft adds a feature that will allow you to Create a browsing session where cookies, history, passwords, form data and objects will disappear once the browser is closed and this is suddenly “bad”. Mozilla toyed with adding the feature in Firefox 3 and Safari has had it for some time. So apparantly this is a need for Internet users. No doubt many will use this feature for unsavory gains. Then again these people never had a problem surfing for this kind of content before these features existed. What this feature will mean remains to be seen. I know in the enterprise there is no hiding what it is your doing. You may lose the history on Internet Explorer. But the firewall will certainly catch what ever it is you think your hiding. What do you think Internet Explorer “InPrivate”browsing, about time or a bit over the top.

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