Private Browsing - Comments Page 1

If you access the Web via a proxy server, doesn't (or can't) the proxy server also log all of your Web activity?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Yes, the same thing applies to anonymizers, circumventers and similar sites. All of your traffic is flowing through that server, and can be logged. Good point!

Ixquick Metasearch offers a private browsing experience, in that, it does all of the above, but now, also does not store your IP address.
Link: http://ixquick.com/eng/

You can also clear your browsing history in the latest copy of Firefox (Version 3.0.7) by going to Tools & then selecting Clear Private Data.

EDITOR'S NOTE: That works, but will clear ALL data for ALL sites. You probably don't want to lose all your cookies and form inputs. And does it also clear the cache?

Are the pages "privately" visited full operational, despite of "no cookies" mode??

EDITOR'S NOTE: If you refuse cookies, you will lose some functionality on some sites. Certainly sites that use cookies to customize your experience on future visits will be affected.

Two clicks and Opera gives you a clean dialog screen to choose which private data to delete (Tools/Delete Private Data).

EDITOR'S NOTE: Yes, but it deletes ALL data from ALL sites, right? Private browsing lets you block the logging for one (or selected) sites.

Internet comments on Browzar have been very negative.
e.g.,
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ANewPrivateBrowserIMeanBrowzarDoesNotWorkAsAdvertised.aspx

Any thoughts?
David

Bob, for years I have set my IE browser to 0 for the History. I learned a long time ago, that I really didn't need to have a History available and that way no one knows where I have been. Setting the History to 0 means that when you close your browser, nothing is logged.

This way, I can still keep my 'cookies' that I want for those sessions, that I frequent. I prefer to have 'control' over what happens on my computer. I use CCleaner to clean out my Internet travels, as well as other things that CCleaner does. What I like about all of this, is that I decide when to do what, not some program.

I also, only use my computer for home purposes, email, paying bills online, surfing the Internet and downloading purchased games or playing on one of my gaming communities. My PC is not a home office computer or a corporate computer. I think, that makes a big difference in how you approach this issue.

For a while I used ForceField from Zone Labs, but I think there were conflicts with other programs, and it seemed to slow everything down so much that I ditched it.

I have the Firefox portable app. Isn't that like private browsing?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Yes, it seems pretty much the same, since it runs in a sandbox environment. I think all the bookmarks, cookies, etc., disappear when you close the app, right?

Bob,
Yes the cookies and bookmarks all go away. The only cookies left are from my Explorer that I use on rare occasions.