backtop

Blog: Internet Firefox 3.1 to Get Its Own Porn Mode
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - September 15, 2008 10:44 AM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 28 comment(s) - last by lakrids.. on Sep 20 at 12:42 PM
Firefox to get baked in privacy toggle in release 3.1

Privacy is a big concern for many computer users, especially those who share a computer with other people be it in the home or at the office. The need for privacy goes further than hiding what web pages you visit for the next user, you may need to be able to hide passwords and other items as well.

Firefox 3.1 has had a plug-in for a while called Stealther that offered up the ability to sure in private without storing pages to the cache or tracking the history. Mozilla has now announced that when the Firefox 3.1 update hits, a privacy toggle will be baked into the browser. That will mean no need for a plug-in to keep your web escapades from other computer users.

Download.com reports that the privacy toggle feature has been on the radar of Mozilla since 2004. The reason it has not debuted until the 3.1 update is that the feature was on the back burner to be able to keep the 3.0 browser on its release schedule. Firefox 3.0 was able to set a world record for the most software downloads in one 24-hour period.

It's very likely that Mozilla felt significant pressure when Microsoft added a feature to the latest beta of Internet Explorer 8 called InPrivate -- dubbed porn mode -- that prevents tracking of web browsing history, saving of passwords, and cookies from being stored.

The feature in Firefox 3.1 has no official name, but will prevent the browser from storing a cache of a page browsing history, no autofill passwords, new passwords won’t be saved, and anything downloaded will be deleted from the download manager. Even the fact that you are using privacy mode will be kept private, unlike the notification on IE8 that you are surfing privately.

Just think, after Firefox 3.1, you will be able to hide the fact that you are looking for more pics of that hot and ever popular Firefox girl. If you find any, like, ummm... let me know.

Comments     Threshold


This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
Rejoice!
By AnnihilatorX on 9/15/2008 10:52:24 AM , Rating: 5
Only if Mozilla provide a free proxy anonymizer or built in support of Tor or Onion network in this mode then you are set.

Another feature that would be useful in -p-o-r-n- mode, I mean as an addition to general firefox is to isolate sound source to active tab only. Everyone I believe would have had problems with advertisement or video making noise from a tab you don't know which one. It should be so that only the active tab has the sound activated.




RE: Rejoice!
By Clauzii on 9/15/2008 12:19:37 PM , Rating: 2
And since FF already have the 'hide tab until I click it", that should be very easy to implement as an option.


RE: Rejoice!
By gigahertz20 on 9/15/2008 3:42:00 PM , Rating: 2
Have you used Tor before? It's slow as hell. Be glad they don't include in by default.


RE: Rejoice!
By porkpie on 9/16/2008 5:23:08 PM , Rating: 2
I'll vote for the sound-on-activetab right now.


RE: Rejoice!
By Xerstead on 9/18/2008 3:58:34 PM , Rating: 2
Please can this be done.
Would also like to be able to disable sound from web pages completely. Preferably with a checkbox on the toolbar so i can togle on/mute(off) easily.


RE: Rejoice!
By ebakke on 9/19/2008 1:58:57 PM , Rating: 2
Tor isn't as anonymous as you'd hope.


I thought FF was ahead of the game?
By initialised on 9/15/2008 5:57:08 PM , Rating: 1
Chrome has this, IE8 beta 1&2 have this already why are they playing catchup all of a sudden?




RE: I thought FF was ahead of the game?
By icanhascpu on 9/15/08, Rating: 0
RE: I thought FF was ahead of the game?
By HaZaRd2K6 on 9/15/2008 10:01:00 PM , Rating: 3
Umm, no. He's right. Chrome has Incognito mode and the IE8 betas have InPrivate. Opera might have a privacy mode, too (I don't use it so I can't say for sure), but that doesn't mean Chrome and IE8 don't.


RE: I thought FF was ahead of the game?
By ChronoReverse on 9/16/08, Rating: 0
RE: I thought FF was ahead of the game?
By elvarsteinn on 9/19/2008 6:15:54 AM , Rating: 2
But wasn't Safari first? I'm not 100% sure but i thought so...


By ebakke on 9/19/2008 2:00:14 PM , Rating: 2
Yes.


By Kamasutra on 9/18/2008 2:52:54 AM , Rating: 1
I thought InPrivate debuted in IE8 Beta 2. Anyway, I guess they can't be ahead in everything. As the article indicates, discussion for this was started before Safari had even released their version and for some reason was not deemed a priority until now, when their competitors all have this feature. To be fair, two of those implementations are only available in betas, and Firefox 3.1 will definitely launch before Chrome's final release and probably not far from IE8's. If anyone wants to test this now, it's available on the tryserver, for which you can find the direct link in the Bugzilla thread.


Like IE8
By B3an on 9/16/2008 10:29:15 AM , Rating: 1
So is this just like the IE8 BETA 2 feature? FF copying IE for once?




RE: Like IE8
By lakrids on 9/17/2008 7:31:33 AM , Rating: 4
Why is this even an issue? FYI the stealther extension has existed since 2005...

If anything Firefox is copying from its own extension, and I can be like you and claim IE copied that feature from the Firefox extension as well.


RE: Like IE8
By elvarsteinn on 9/19/2008 6:20:18 AM , Rating: 2
Or, which is more accurate, IE (as well as Chrome) copied it from Opera/Safari (not sure which of those 2 had it first, but definately either) and now FF is adapting it as a built-in feature last of the bunch.

Extensions are made by 3rd parties 99% of the time i believe, so that doesn't really count as a FF feature even if it existed since 2005.


RE: Like IE8
By lakrids on 9/20/2008 12:42:09 PM , Rating: 2
It's a firefox feature because it has been available to firefox since 2005.

Safari has copied this browser feature from the Firefox extension.
Opera has copied this browser feature from the Firefox from the extension.
This feature was copied for those browsers, they weren't invented.

Disclaimer: I don't care who copies what, but people who are eager to accuse other browsers of copying features should also accept it when their own favourite browser has copied a browser feature, be it from another browser or an extension...


Dude...
By FITCamaro on 9/15/08, Rating: 0
RE: Dude...
By SunAngel on 9/15/2008 1:20:19 PM , Rating: 2
that was funny. the more i thought about it the more it resembles the phrase "sure up" - meaning to strenghten. i guess for those down under that is an acceptable way of speaking. i am nearly certain you've heard the phrase "baked in" before. that is not new and i thought was spoken in all parts of the US.


RE: Dude...
By noirsoft on 9/18/2008 8:21:56 AM , Rating: 2
Except the phrase you want is "shore up", not "sure up"

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=shore+up&...


So who has the better porn mode?
By Retrospect on 9/17/2008 11:05:13 AM , Rating: 3
IE?
Firefox?
Chrome?

Without proxy are you really private?




Awesome!
By amanojaku on 9/15/2008 11:12:44 AM , Rating: 2
Now I can use my productivity laptop to be more, um, productive. ;-)

Actually, I think this is very useful. Most sites (like DailyTech) have dynamic content, which caching sometimes defeats. Throw in work sites with sensitive data and you'll want to have something that deletes cookies, cache, history, etc...

Firefox 3 is awesome; I can't wait to try the beta. In the meantime, I have to find ways to be more, um, productive.




sounds
By cmontyburns on 9/15/2008 12:10:17 PM , Rating: 2
</