Windows 7: Up and Running

Privacy

Privacy has always been a big concern for web browser makers as well as users. In IE8, Microsoft has taken one step forward in beefing up privacy through these features:

InPrivate Browsing

Allows you to view websites without leaving behind any trace on your computer. The sites you visited and data you submitted will not be saved after you are done with the session. This is ideal for surfing on shared or public computers.

InPrivate Filtering

Allows you to block code that websites often use to track your surfing pattern.

Although Microsoft has introduced these two features to enhance the privacy of its users, it has also introduced another new feature that makes some users uneasy. The Suggested Sites feature uses the information from sites you have visited to introduce some other sites to you that you may be interested in. Although this is a cool feature, some users are uncomfortable with Microsoft knowing too much about their surfing patterns.

InPrivate Browsing

InPrivate Browsing is very useful in a public environment in which you do not want others to know the pages you have visited. Some good examples are checking your email or performing banking transactions using a public computer, such as at the airport. With InPrivate Browsing, IE8 does not store information about the sites that you visit after the InPrivate Browsing session is closed. Such information includes cookies, temporary Internet files, web page history, form data, and passwords.

To activate InPrivate Browsing, click ...