Your Guide to Private Browsing
![surprised man on computer](https://web.archive.org/web/20110501031618im_/http://www.blogcdn.com/www.switched.com/media/2011/03/surprisedguy.jpg)
When running a browser in private mode, everything you do is kept separate from your main session, including download lists, caches, browser history, forms, passwords and other temporary files. When the window is closed, all this information is erased, and can't be pulled back up in either a normal browser window nor a new private one. Beyond the obvious advantages -- there's a reason the feature has been dubbed "porn mode" -- having a separate browser that scrubs itself clean has a number of benefits. On a shared home PC, it's perfect for covering your tracks while Christmas or engagement ring shopping. If a paranoid guest needs to hop on your computer quickly, set them up with a private session, allowing them to browse to their heart's content. This produces headache-free perusals of bank balances or e-mail correspondence, prohibiting passwords from being automatically saved.
This trick obviously works in reverse, too. If you have to use a friend's PC or a public computer (such as in a college computer lab or a library), open a private browsing window to help keep your data safe.
Even if no one else touches your PC, having a standalone browser session comes in handy. One of our favorite tricks is to use an Incognito Chrome window to log into multiple accounts on a single service. For example, if you have two Twitter accounts, you can log in to one in your main browser window and the other in Incognito or InPrivate, optimizing your tweeting time.
Yet, these modes are not completely isolated from your main browser. Unlike simply opening a new window, private browsing modes are a completely separate "session" (meaning the two browser windows don't share data back and forth, e.g. you can't drag tabs between them) but they're still based on the primary browser. So your history, bookmarks and saved form data are still accessible from the private mode -- convenient for quickly browsing on the sly, but it means anyone using Incognito on your PC will be able to see just how much time you spend perusing Tumblr.
If you've got some secret browsing to do (we won't judge), here's how to quickly access the feature in the major browsers:
Internet Explorer InPrivate
![](https://web.archive.org/web/20110501031618im_/http://www.blogcdn.com/www.switched.com/media/2011/03/inp.jpg)
Firefox Private Browsing
![](https://web.archive.org/web/20110501031618im_/http://www.blogcdn.com/www.switched.com/media/2011/03/pvate.jpg)
Chrome Incognito
![](https://web.archive.org/web/20110501031618im_/http://www.blogcdn.com/www.switched.com/media/2011/03/incog.jpg)
Safari Private Browsing
![](https://web.archive.org/web/20110501031618im_/http://www.blogcdn.com/www.switched.com/media/2011/03/priv.jpg)
Opera Private
![](https://web.archive.org/web/20110501031618im_/http://www.blogcdn.com/www.switched.com/media/2011/03/private2.jpg)
Comments
3
Subscribe to commentsdangilstrapMar 8th 2011 4:19PM
Doesn't matter what you do, if you use google they keep a history of every site you have visited.
Just log into your google account and search for history, will show you some scary stuff.
Private browsing doesn't stop them from logging your every move.
Sam - FindMyGiftMar 16th 2011 5:50AM
Tbh, the only reason I could see private browsing being used is to hide your history from your partner or spouse. Some people seem to think that it hides everything that your doing. Overall I don't see the point in having it. I use a number of tools to clear history etc
AlexMar 20th 2011 5:44PM
New York Times paywall is bypassed with this feature too!