All major browsers, such as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome now provide one or the other method for private browsing of the Internet while protecting your privacy. In Internet Explorer, private browsing is allowed using the InPrivate Browsing feature, and when you browse the Internet using this feature, the Internet Explorer will not record the history of your web browsing. Let’s see in detail what are the specific advantages of InPrivate browsing in Internet Explorer and what it does and what it does not do. It is important to know these details since while InPrivate Browsing offers you several good features to protect your privacy, at the same time it has certain limitations in the matter of protecting your privacy that you must know. Moreover, use the latest version of Internet Explorer, that is, IE 8, to take advantage of this feature.
Normally, when you browse the Internet, your browser records several details of your browsing history, including the websites visited by you, storing cookies, saving images, saving temporary Internet files, form data and passwords, and the like. However, in Internet Explorer, when you browse the web using the InPrivate Browsing feature, it will not record your web history and will not leave any trail of your browsing in the Internet Explorer. This means that if somebody, who has access to your computer, wants to check at a later stage where you visited and what you looked at on the Internet, he won’t be able to do so since no such web history is recorded in the Internet Explorer for the InPrivate Browsing session. Thus, your privacy is protected to that extent.
You can start a new InPrivate Browsing session:
When you’re browsing using InPrivate Browsing feature, the address-bar in IE will show the following “InPrivate” icon, that will confirm that you’re in the InPrivate Browsing mode:
When you start a new InPrivate Browsing session, Internet Explorer will open a new window with InPrivate Browsing enabled. Please remember that the privacy protection that InPrivate Browsing provides is available to you only in this window (or in new tabs that you open in this window) and only during the time that you use this window. Of course, you can open any number of new tabs in this InPrivate enabled window, and such new tabs will also be protected by InPrivate Browsing. However, if another Internet Explorer window is open that is not using the feature of InPrivate Browsing, then you’ll not get the protection of InPrivate Browsing in that other window.
If you want to end your current InPrivate Browsing session, simply close that browser window that had this feature enabled.
When you browse the Internet using the InPrivate Browsing feature, Internet Explorer will store some information about your browsing details, such as cookies and temporary Internet files; but this is done only to ensure that the web sites or pages that you visit should work correctly. When you end your current InPrivate Browsing session by closing the window, the above temporarily stored information is deleted. Thus, after you’ve closed the InPrivate Browsing session, nothing remains stored in IE about your browsing behavior during that session, thereby ensuring your privacy.
Have a look at what information is temporarily stored by the IE during your InPrivate Browsing session and how it is deleted at the end of this session:
(1) Cookies: IE will keep the cookies in memory to make the web pages display correctly. However, these cookies are deleted when you close IE. So, finally, no cookies are stored.
(2) Temporary Internet files: Same as for “Cookies”. These files are stored temporarily during the browsing session but are deleted once the browser is closed.
(3) Anti-phishing cache: Temporary information is encrypted and stored to make the web pages work correctly.
(4) Webpage history: Not stored.
(5) Form data and passwords: Not stored.
(6) Address bar and search AutoComplete: Not stored.
(7) Automatic Crash Restore (ACR): It can restore the web page you were browsing in a tab when the tab crashes during a session. However, if the IE whole window crashes, data is deleted and the IE window cannot be restored. Thus, even this information is not stored at the end of session.
(8) Document Object Model (DOM) storage: The DOM storage is also not kept after the IE window is closed.
Thus, it may be noticed that while certain information is stored by IE during the InPrivate Browsing session to make your browsing experience rich, such stored information is automatically deleted when the IE window is closed.
One has to appreciate that InPrivate Browsing will protect your privacy in so far as storing browsing information on your own computer is concerned. However, if information about your browsing is stored on some web site or web servers or other intermediary servers, etc., it cannot protect you. In general, InPrivate Browsing cannot protect you for the following things:
(1) It cannot prevent other persons on your network, such as a network administrator, or your ISP or some hacker, from seeing your browsing details.
(2) InPrivate Browsing cannot prevent the websites you visit from storing information about you and your browsing behavior. Thus, if you’re visiting a website, it may still record your IP address, details of your browser, your computer, etc. Moreover, if you enter some information on a website, that can also be recorded by that website.
(3) While using InPrivate Browsing, if you add any favorites or feeds in the Internet Explorer, change your home page, or change any IE settings, they will be retained even after you close your InPrivate Browsing session.
In this regard, please also note that since InPrivate Browsing cannot delete any history or other information about toolbars or browser extensions which is stored on your computer, therefore, for protecting your privacy, when you start an InPrivate Browsing window, IE will disable all toolbars and extensions by default. However, if you want, you can enable a toolbar and extension even during InPrivate Browsing session; but, please be aware that they may store your browsing history. To enable a particular toolbar or extension during your InPrivate Browsing session, click on Tools à Manage Add-ons à Toolbars and extensions; and then, click the toolbar or extension that you want to use, and click Enable.
Conclusion:
InPrivate Browsing is a useful feature of Internet Explorer that will ensure that your browsing details are not stored on your computer. To that extent, your privacy is protected. However, as mentioned above, InPrivate Browsing cannot protect you for what happens outside your computer, i.e., it cannot protect you if somebody at your ISP or network administrator or on the website you visit is storing information about your browsing behavior. Of course, you can take some further precautions to protect your privacy even for these aspects. Read, How to be anonymous online? Part 1 and How to be anonymous online? Part 2, for more details.
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