IE8 to have 'Porn Mode'?
Mikey 9 comments
As Microsoft gears up to launch Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 (I'm hoping it's a significant change from the beta 1 I have been testing), rumours have surfaced the new browser will incorporate what is essentially a feature to cover your pornographic surfing habits, or Porn Mode as istartedsomething.com puts it.
A similar feature was dropped from Firefox 3 and the only other browser on the market that currently has this feature is Safari.
Of course the feature is designed to allow the user to start a private browsing session in other scenarios, like when researching a medical condition for example.
The big question is though, is it enough to bring back Firefox users? Somehow I doubt it, but I like the idea of this feature, and it's already been available as a plug-in for Firefox for a couple of years now although I have not used it yet.
...in response to this comment by Anders. There will be a giant flashing label in the menu that says "Porn Mode Activated".
Jake
Wednesday 20th August 2008 | 12:55 PMSeems to be pretty useless... you can cover your tracks once you're done, totally negating the need for such a thing.
...in response to this comment by Jake. I think they want to make it easier. The idea would be that you do something to enable your private session, say hit a button or something, and then hit it again again when you are finished looking at porn - whoops I mean doing medical research.
So no information is recorded during that session thereby negating the need to go an clean up after yourself. The current problem with cleaning up methods is it involves destroying all your cookies and history - not just the ones related to the session you want to hide. For one thing that is an annoyance and on a shared computer is also raises suspicion anyway :-)
It's actually not a bad idea, but it's hardly anything to go back to IE for.
Oswal
Wednesday 20th August 2008 | 01:33 PM...in response to this comment by Mikey. Knowing IE as we do it wont take long for someone to exploit this.
Jim
Wednesday 20th August 2008 | 05:15 PM...in response to this comment by Anders. I think the naked ladies (or dudes) on the screen will scream "I'm looking at porno!"
Yolanda
Wednesday 20th August 2008 | 06:45 PMI will stick with IE for now. I still don't see anything compelling enough in Firefox yet.
Rodney
Sunday 24th August 2008 | 02:04 PM...in response to this comment by Yolanda. You mean aside from countless ActiveX vulnerabilities, or the complete failure of IE to provide any measure of security at all? (https://rustylime.com/show_article.php?id=2312)
In any case Mike, won't things like Google Desktop, which still capture all your browsing habits for searching and indexing circumvent these measures?
Martin
Monday 25th August 2008 | 03:55 PMWhat porn sites are you guys looking at that you require the need for covering your tracks?
Anders
Wednesday 20th August 2008 | 10:46 AMI wonder if it will be obvious to the casual observer if you are in 'porn mode' :-)