Browser Wars Heat Up as Firefox Adds 'Privacy Mode' (NewsFactor)
Barry Levine, newsfactor.com 40 minutes ago
Keeping in step with rival Web browsers from Microsoft and Google, Mozilla has announced a "privacy mode" for Firefox 3.1. The update is scheduled to be released in beta form in October.
In privacy mode, a browser doesn't record a history of visited sites or save cookies from those sites.
Line Between Public and Private
On the Mozilla Wiki, developer Mike Connor listed three goals for the privacy mode.
"There should be a clear line drawn between your 'public' and 'private' browsing sessions," he wrote, so users can't be tracked when they are doing things they consider private. Information on visits can still be explicitly saved, he continued, such as per-site permissions, bookmarks, and so on.
In addition to not recording visited sites and removing all downloads from a given session, privacy mode will also mean there is no prompt to save passwords, and password fields cannot be autofilled. "Autocomplete" can be available, but entered data will not be kept. When a user enters or leaves privacy mode, any current authenticated sessions will be logged out.
Currently, Firefox offers an extension called Stealthier with private browsing features.
The addition of privacy mode is a response, at least in part, to the recent launch of a beta version of Google's Chrome browser, which features a privacy mode called Incognito. In the Web-published log of Mozilla bug tracking, one Firefox developer noted that "recent developments with Chrome will likely make finally getting private-browsing mode shipped a priority for 3.1."
No Protection Against Secret Agents
When a user opens Incognito in Chrome, however, Google points out that its privacy mode is not intended to deal with such privacy issues as identity theft or tricking users. This includes, Google noted drily, "Web sites that collect or share information about you," malicious software that tracks your keystrokes, "surveillance by secret agents" or "people standing behind you."
In addition, the number-one browser in market share, Internet Explorer, features private browsing -- called InPrivate -- in IE8 Beta 2. The Safari browser from Apple also has private browsing.
Some observers are suggesting that this latest round of one-upmanship suggests that the browser wars are back. Harold James, writing in Business Day online, wrote Friday that "Google is threatening to reopen the browser wars of the 1990s, when Microsoft's Internet Explorer eliminated its rival, Netscape's Navigator."
Al Hilwa, program director at industry research firm IDC, said, "We're definitely back in the browser wars."
But, he pointed out, "a lot has changed" since the first major war 10 years ago. This generation of browser competition, he said, is taking place in an environment where a browser is a common interface for many applications, a role once served exclusively by operating systems.
Hilwa also noted that there is also "more isolation between processes, more security and privacy," and browsers now have a prominent role in the center ring of computing -- mobile devices.