New Firefox privacy mode released to testers

Late Monday a small, yet big Firefox feature was released to testers of Minefield, Mozilla's testbed application for new browser innovations. The new feature is private browsing, also known in some circles as "porn mode." When toggled, it takes your Web history, user names, passwords, searches, and cookies and bins them the second you close out the window, effectively making it appear that the session never existed.

Monday night's Minefield build included said privacy mode in all its glory, giving browser users the freedom to hide their browsing habits from others.

Similar to the implementation found in browsers made by Apple, Microsoft, and Google, the new mode can be started at any time during a browsing session. However, users must allow their existing window (with any open tabs) to be shut down while using the freshly opened "private" one. Once they close that out, it will simply re-open their original browsing session. Users can also opt to have every session start out in privacy mode, which could be a useful setting on public computers.

The feature has been on Firefox's road map for some time now (Mozilla's bug tracker has it posted back in mid-2004), however it could not be completed in time for Firefox 3's release back in mid-June. In the meantime users have been able to achieve similar results using several extensions--the most notable being Stealther.

Expect to see privacy mode making its way into Firefox 3.1, which will feature privacy and performance tweaks, along with improvements to the built-in tagging system. If you want to become a tester, you can find out more here.

[via Mozilla Links]

[Seanathome]

Why is Firefox behind with THIS feature? They were always pioneers with the many, other features... hmm.... ;)

[tipoo_]

what were they pioneers in? most of the real innovations came from opera

*puts on flame suit*

[Lerianis]

Well, for once I have to agree with tipoo_. The fact is that most big innovations today are starting with Opera and Safari, and then filtering down slowly to Firefox and IE8.... but Firefox STILL has Opera beat with the add-ons.

[Josh.Lowensohn]

Not sure why Mozilla came behind except that Firefox isn't the only project going on there and there might be some legacy code issues. It's much easier to implement features when you're starting with something new (e.g. Safari & Chrome).

[this1!]

i dont know why ppl keep hammering in this point that opera has this built in, who cares? the fact that i can customize my web browser is what makes firefox soo appealing to me. I can choose how bloated or slim my browser is by controlling what add-ons and features I want implemented.

Opera is a fine browser, but a control freak like me wont give up firefox anytime soon...

[HeavyJim]

I just had to reinstall WinME on a computer, latest firefox won't even work with it. And I still see complaints about sites that don't work with firefox. Seems like isn't keeping up either.

[royc]

@HeavyJim

[i]And I still see complaints about sites that don't work with firefox. Seems like isn't keeping up either.[/i]

The sites that don't work with firefox don't comply with standards. So firefox does not need to keep up with anything. The sites that don't work with firefox use IE extensions that MS added to IE.

[royc]

@HeavyJim

"I just had to reinstall WinME on a computer"

WinME was not a good OS from the start and it hasn't been supported by MS for how long now.

And yet you want the latest version of a program to work with it. :)