Microsoft on Monday revealed some new privacy features for Internet Explorer 8, the next version of its market-leading Web browser. The features address the concerns of consumers and privacy advocates, who called the plans a positive step.
The new features will let users control their history, cookies and other information that IE8 stores. Other features aim to help users control how their browsing history is shared by Web sites. By default, IE8 browses the Web the same way IE7 does.
“Having privacy native in the browser as opposed to just an extension is something we’ve been advocating for a long time from all the browser manufacturers,” said Ari Schwartz, deputy director at the Center for Democracy and Technology. “Incorporating all of these privacy features at once is a major step forward. Safari has some built-in privacy and Firefox has extensions. Native privacy is better.”
Inside InPrivate Browsing
When a new feature called InPrivate Browsing is activated, new cookies are not stored. Rather, all new cookies become session cookies and existing cookies can still be read. New history entries will not be recorded and new temporary Internet files will be deleted after the private browsing window is closed. Form data, passwords, queries typed into a search box, visited links, and addresses typed into the address bar are not stored.
“If you are using a shared PC, a borrowed laptop from a friend, or a public PC, sometimes you don’t want other people to know where you’ve been on the Web. Internet Explorer 8’s InPrivate Browsing makes that ‘over the shoulder’ privacy easy by not storing history, cookies, temporary Internet files, or other data,” Andy Zeigler, a program manager at Microsoft, wrote in the company’s blog.
IE8 will also offer a feature to delete browsing history without deleting cookies that allow trusted Web sites to remember…