Do We Need A Better Private Browsing Mode? (networkworld.com)

Network World's Alan Zeichi recently argued "We need a better Private Browsing mode." Slashdot reader Miche67 writes: As this writer says, Chrome's Incognito Mode "doesn't offer strong protection at all." [Incognito mode "only prevents Chrome from saving your site visit activity. It won't stop other sources from seeing your browsing activity."] And Firefox's Private Browsing with Tracking Protection -- while stronger than Chrome -- is an all-or-nothing option. "You can't turn it off for sites you trust, but have it otherwise enabled by default."
The submission ends, "Every single link to non-trusted websites should open, by default, in a Private/Incognito window. C'mon, browser makers, get this done." This raises two questions. How do Slashdot's readers browse? And do you think we need a better private mode for web browsing?

Comments

i use tor

[Anonymous Coward]

Common everybody knows that the private browsing mode is just a porn mode that hides your history from other users of your Computer, nothing more.

I just use Tor if i want real privacy.

Re:i use tor

[mlts]

With browser fingerprinting (check it out on EFF's Panopticlick), it really doesn't matter if you use Tor or not.

What I do if I want a stateless session is vagrant up a virtual machine, have it provisioned with a web browser, usual ad blocker software, my bookmarks as a clicky HTML file locally, and use that. When done, destroy the VM. This way, any changes or stuff saved to the VM are toast, and there will always be a different fingerprint every session.

As for protecting my IP, I just use a VPN service. For me a simple proxy is good enough so that ad companies and behavior tracking sites are blocked/stymied.

Re:i use tor

[AmiMoJo]

Have you actually tried browser fingerprinting with the TOR Browser? If you set it up right (I recommend Tails) it doesn't work. It can't separate you from many, many other TOR Browser users.

Go try it right now, with the Trails live CD. They fixed this years ago.

Re:We dont need a better private mode--

[Voyager529]

Eternal September was the death of the internet. What we have now is a superhighway of advertisements directed into your eyeballs, and automated grabber arms reaching for your banking information.

In a somewhat-amusing irony, Usenet is much more usable now and has basically-no spam anymore.

I Use Multiple Profiles

[Anonymous Coward]

FWIW:

I have about 10 different firefox profiles and a menu widget to launch them individually. Most are divided by task - one for all my banking, another for managing utility bills, one for "window shopping," another just for making purchases when I know exactly what I want, another for gmail (actually two different profiles for different gmail accounts), another that has no disk cache configured and wipes everything on exit. I also have two profiles for completely fake identities that I have very lax security on so that they are deliberately tracked. They are like "cover identities" - better to give the trackers something that they think is real than to look suspicious by trying too hard to avoid tracking.

All the profiles have different sets of extensions (although 90% of the extensions are common across all my profiles). Beyond the basics like Adblock, NoScript, Requestpolicy, and Self-Destructing Cookies I also use extensions like Random Agent Spoofer and Canvas Defender to give each profile a different "fingerprint."

Also I use the PrivateInternetAccess VPN because it lets me switch IP addresses at will, so whenever I fire up a new profile I also switch to a new IP address. I am looking into setting up a bunch of outbound proxy servers, each one bound to a different VPN tunnel so that each profile can get a persistent but unique IP address. I've just been too lazy to put that together yet.

All in all it is a PITA to set up, but once everything is in place it is pretty easy to use. The one thing that really increased usability was to set each profile to have a different theme, so that it is hard to make the mistake of using one profile when I thought I was using a different one.

Re:No, we need to stop doing illicit things online

[Anonymous Coward]

Shitting in public is illicit. Shitting in private is not. Therefore we are all illicit without privacy.

Re:No, we need to stop doing illicit things online

[KiloByte]

What's that "free country" you're talking about? While in countries other than North Korea, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia you can often get away with criticizing the government on superficial matters, there isn't a single country that won't punish you for revealing news that truly hurts those in power.

Case in point: Assange -- Sweden tries to pass as a free country. Or, show me those "free countries" supporting Snowden; Ecuador and Russia stepped up because of a grudge against USA rather than of good will.

Privacy Badger is better

[mister_playboy]

Ghostery's business model is that they prevent other trackers from tracking their users so that the tracking data gathered by Ghostery itself is more valuable.

There is no need to compromise with commercial interests on this subject. Use EFF's Privacy Badger instead.

Re:No, we need to stop doing illicit things online

[fustakrakich]

Nope, nobody on the internet gets my name. I'm "John Smith". I only give personal info in person.