Topic: Firefox 3 won't have 'private browsing'

[Clive]

At least one security feature won't make it into the final release of Firefox 3 on June 17, Mozilla confirmed again Thursday.

The feature, Private Browsing, would have disabled all caching, cookie downloads, history records, and form data used during the current session. In essence, you could surf the Web and leave no fingerprints.

"It basically said to the browser: I would like what I'm about to do to not be logged anywhere," said Johnathan Nightingale, Mozilla's "human shield," aka its security user interface designer.

He described the private browsing process as this: you hit a button and everything past that point isn't logged. Then, at some point in the future, you hit the button again and it's as though what you just did never happened.

One possible use might be when someone other than the computer owner uses the browser.

"We looked at ways to do this, but the problem is that it touches a lot of code," Nightingale said. "Because there are such rich interactions with Web sites and mashups and things like that, we didn't want to put in something that was half baked."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10789_3-9967829-57.html

[Simon]

Sounds like a good idea - let's hope they can fully bake it for a future add-on.

[Reno]

I'm sure they'll be some addon that'll make it possible.

[chorleydave]

I must admit, I am always reluctant to overdo the security thing as it can often clash with usability.  I installed something called Noscript in my Firefox browser, but soon had to uninstall it as it was making one particular website I regularly visit virtually unusable unless I spent minutes allowing this and allowing that.  I just cannot see any point in making security so tight that it impacts negatively on the online experience.  We might as well just switch off at the mains and forget about it.

[Simon]

Very good point, Dave.

[Reno]

What's so difficult? "Allow it" means permanently, "temporarily allow" means just this one time.

If you do a lot of random surfing then it really comes in handy. My 54yr old mom learned how to use it and I haven't had to clean her machine at all in the last 4 years.

[chorleydave]

That might be so in theory, Bob, but that particular website didn't take to it at all and as I visit that site several times a day, it had to go.

[Reno]

Sorry to hear that it didn't work out for you, but that's like saying "in theory" 2+2=4.

There's even a whitelist in the options. here