Meet Firefox private mode
Posted by Percy Cabello on November 4th, 2008 • Tags:
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As announced some time ago, the latest Firefox 3.1 nightlies (Shiretoko) now feature a Private Browsing mode, where all user activity traces including history, cache, download history, saved passwords, searches, cookies, and others, are removed as soon as the user returns to normal browsing mode.

To enter Private Browsing, select Private Browsing in the Tools menu.

Firefox will ask for confirmation which you can disable for future uses.

Once confirmed, Firefox will save and close your current session and restart in Private Browsing mode. The only hint of this are the words (Private Browsing) displayed next to the window title.

Once you’ve finished, just click back on Private Browsing in the Tools menu. Your session will be restored as it was before entering private mode immediately or, if you exit Firefox (or crash), the next time you start it.

So, yes, there is no way to have normal and private mode windows or tabs at the same time. As Ehsan Akhgari (who’s worked on the implementation for the last ten months) explains, it would require deeper architectural changes to Firefox that may or may not occur in a future release.

Programming interfaces that tell the current mode, or when a user enters or leaves private mode allow extensions to also support private mode.

The super-paranoic can set browser.privatebrowsing.autostart via about:config to make Firefox always start in private mode.

Firefox user experience designer, Alex Faaborg, has shared other plans to improve privacy in Firefox that include a complete Privacy options redesign, and an option for clearing private data for a certain time frame.

But these and a better cue that Firefox is in private mode may not come until the next Firefox release (probably Firefox 3.2).

Comments
sim said on November 4, 2008, 1:51 pm:

is it that hard to make a little icon to go in the address bar that looks like a lock an eye or something for private mode?

BUGabundo said on November 4, 2008, 2:38 pm:

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1b2pre) Gecko/20081103 Ubuntu/8.10 (intrepid) Shiretoko/3.1b2pre ID:20081103212022

and I still dont see that option

Private Mode For Firefox | Universe Firefox said on November 4, 2008, 2:51 pm:

[...] as soon as the user returns to normal browsing mode”, as Percy Cabello for Mozilla Links says in the latest article. This new mode, will be easy to activate by clicking a button into the Tools menu: this will [...]

fastfreddie1959 said on November 4, 2008, 11:26 pm:

BUGabundo…..
It’s not there till mozilla upgrades to 3.2
I don’t have that option either.

Meet Firefox private mode -:- Purple Indigo (PI) said on November 4, 2008, 11:46 pm:

[...] Source: Mozilla Links [...]

Mozilla Memperkenalkan Fungsi Private-Browsing | aMaNz said on November 5, 2008, 4:15 am:

[...] Fungsi Private-Browsing Di Perkenalkan Mozilla [via] [...]

Enable Private Browsing in Firefox (Shiretoko) said on November 5, 2008, 5:12 am:

[...] Full Article [...]

diskostu sagt… » Firefox 3.1 bekommt Private Browsing said on November 5, 2008, 5:13 am:

[...] den aktuellen Nightlies von Firefox 3.1 (Codename Shiretoko) ist ein neues Feature namens “Private Browsing” aktiv. Wählt man im “Tools”-Menü den Eintrag [...]

strate.at said on November 5, 2008, 5:23 am:

Firefox Nightly-Build bringt Private-Browsing…

Im neuen Firefox 3.1 Nightly-Build ist das Feature “Private-Browsing” enthalten. In diesem Modus speichert der Browser keinerlei Daten die während dem surfen anfallen. Diese Funktion ist z.B. bei Google Chrome und dem Internet Explorer 8 s….

O Private Mode do Firefox « mb|Weblog said on November 5, 2008, 8:51 am:

[...] Private Mode do Firefox 05Nov08 A mais recente build do Firefox 3.1 vem com o Porn Mode Private Browsing Mode (modo de navegação privada) activado. Utilizando o Private Mode, os dados de navegação como o [...]

BUGabundo said on November 5, 2008, 9:45 am:

It says “the latest Firefox 3.1 nightlies” and that what I have!
Strange

The Inquirer ES : Ya se puede disfrutar de navegación privada en Firefox said on November 5, 2008, 11:52 am:

[...] MozillaLinks Descarga la última versión [...]

¿Navegación privada en Firefox 3.1? said on November 6, 2008, 7:25 pm:

[...] | Cnetnews.com Descarga | Mozilla FTP Imagen | MozillaLinks trackback ¿Recomendarías este post? Más noticias sobre: Windows, Mac, Navegadores, [...]

Firefox 3.1 kommer innehålla mycket nyheter | Ohsohightech.se said on November 7, 2008, 4:33 am:

[...] och referenser: Firefox 3.1 beta 1 – an overview of features for web developers, Geode, Meet firefox private mode, Och en väldans massa pÃ¥ [...]

Kinexy » Navegación privada en Firefox 3.1 said on November 7, 2008, 5:37 am:

[...] parece que esta característica esta más cerca de Firefox ya que en las últimas versiones de pruebas de Firefox ha sido añadida esta nueva función y [...]

Firefox 3.1 traerá Navegación Privada| Recursos web, WebScripts, Diseño y programación.| MinDokan Blog said on November 7, 2008, 8:07 am:

[...] | MozillaLinks Descarga | Mozilla [...]

Fx 3.1 Private Browsing « Firefox Extension Guru’s Blog said on November 8, 2008, 3:03 pm:

[...] (Grand Stream Dreams) pointed me to the Mozilla Links article: Meet Firefox private mode… “Once confirmed, Firefox will save and close your current session and restart in [...]

Private Mode For Firefox | Computer Solution said on December 19, 2008, 10:00 am:

[...] as soon as the user returns to normal browsing mode”, as Percy Cabello for Mozilla Links says in the latest article.This new mode, will be easy to activate by clicking a button into the Tools menu: this will require [...]

Mozilla adiciona modo de navegação privada em um build de testes do Firefox 3.1 said on December 21, 2008, 9:20 pm:

[...] hoje traz mais uma novidade. Os que já estiverem utilizando a nova versão de testes encontrarão um novo modo de navegação onde o aplicativo não registra nenhuma informação sobre os sites visitados pelo usuário [...]

blabla said on July 3, 2009, 11:02 am:

Why can’t I use one normal window and one private window?

Jan said on August 4, 2009, 2:36 pm:

i am from austria, and i have the newest version, but i dont have thet menu points to click ? why about:privatebrowsing also dont work help pls