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Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 Adds Private Browsing

Posted by kdawson on Tue Dec 09, 2008 08:11 AM
from the more-features-late-in-the-game dept.
Mozilla The Internet Upgrades
CWmike was one of several readers to point out the release of Firefox 3.1 Beta 2, the first version of its flagship browser to switch on the much faster TraceMonkey JavaScript engine and sport a working privacy mode dubbed "Private Browsing." An ancillary addition to Private Browsing is a new addition to the "Clear Recent History" dialog box allowing users selectively to erase the last hour, the last two hours, the last four hours, today's, or all browsing history — previously, the wipe was all or nothing. This beta includes support for "web worker threads," a developing specification that will let Web-based application developers run background processes to speed up their apps. One feature present in Beta 1 is gone in the new beta: Ctrl-Tab switching. According to the developer, the UI needs more work; the feature probably won't be in the final 3.1.
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[+] Et Tu, Mozilla? Firefox 3 To Get Privacy Mode 326 comments
CWmike writes "Mozilla will respond to Google's Chrome and Microsoft's IE8 with its own private-browsing, or 'porn' mode in Firefox, according to notes posted on its Web site, and is on track to deliver one in 3.1, the version that will likely go beta next month."
Submission: Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 Here, Adds Private Browsing by CWmike (1292728)
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Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 Adds Private Browsing 50 Comments More /

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  • Come on... no Ctrl+Tab switching?
    How could anyone possibly use it without that feature?

    Seems like a deal-breaker for me...

  • selective history deletion (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Firkragg14 (992271) on Tuesday December 09 2008, @08:18AM (#26045537)
    No more suspicious empty history porn fans.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Most distros, if you set up a user with a UID less than 1000, it doesn't show up anywhere on login screens, etc, but still functions normally. Name it something deceptive like httpdaemon and bury the home directory somewhere within /etc and tada, your own fully featured stealth pron user. No guarantees, but my SO hasn't found it after three years...

      Poisted AC for obvious reasons (ie, she reads /.)

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ThePhilips (752041)

      To me, better feature would be to save history for only specified sites and/or to never save anything from specified sites.

      There are some sites I visit only to check something periodically - and I do not want them to be in history. Or sites which force you for every little thing to go to new page. I simply do not need them to clog my history.

  • Seems top-heavy compared to Stealther (Score:3, Informative)

    by Eccles (932) on Tuesday December 09 2008, @08:20AM (#26045565) Journal

    Stealther did the same thing, but started a heck of a lot faster and could even delete downloads. It doesn't work completely with 3.1 though. Clearing the history for periods of time is a nice touch for those who forget to engage the private mode.

  • Javascript speed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Ed Avis (5917) <ed@membled.com> on Tuesday December 09 2008, @08:34AM (#26045639) Homepage

    If the new Javascript engine is turned on, does this mean that the new Firefox beta gives a larger e-penis [somethingawful.com] than Chrome or the latest Safari?

    Seriously, I am thinking it might be time to start learning Javascript (to a higher level than just being able to copy and paste snippets to autoscroll the page and other simple effects). It's not perfect but it has wide support and mindshare, which is more important than any technical criterion. What I want to do is display simple graphs in the browser of things like stock prices, based on information fetched over SOAP (yeah I know SOAP is a bit clunky, but it's the interface I have). Can more experienced programmers recommend Javascript tutorial sites (at a higher level than 'copy and paste this snippet of code to get cool smilies!') or a good set of libraries?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Azeroth48 (855550)
      learn jQuery.. one of the best lib ever made for javascript! http://jquery.com/ [jquery.com]

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by JuanCarlosII (1086993)
        jQuery is probably good starting point if you want to be able to do simple things very quickly and easily. If you are interested in actually learning the language itself as opposed to just how to do things in one particular library then I'd also recommend looking at Prototype [prototypejs.org]. Prototype reveals a little more of the native DOM than perhaps jQuery allows so IM(NS)HO is a better primer for someone looking to grasp the fundamentals of the language, whereas jQuery is probably the best for actually "getting stuff

  • Nothing new (Score:4, Informative)

    by fxkr (1343139) on Tuesday December 09 2008, @08:35AM (#26045649)
    Isn't this what Distrust [mozilla.org] is for? And that one is even better:
    1. Activate it.
    2. Surf.
    3. Deactivate it.

    It then deletes everything that happened between 1. and 3., but keeps what happened before you activated it.

  • Can we disable this ? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    with IE7 via group policy you can stop the user from clearing history etc, can Firefox do the same ?
    or is Firefox going to be deemed a security threat by Administrators ? which is not good for corporate usage and compliance

  • If your workplace has you going through a proxy, no amount of stealth in the browser is going to help.

    I have had a ton of people requesting I install Chrome for them ( which violates policy anyway ) because they mistakenly think that the privacy feature will hide their browsing habits from the logs.

    Oh, they try to be sneaky about it, sure. But that's what their after. I have half a mind to install it for them, then watch the logs to see what they don't want me to know about.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Hatta (162192)

          No [kartbuilding.net] problem [wieers.com].

          Not that I advocate violating company policy. Just pointing out that it can be done. After all, a false sense of security can be worse than no security at all.

  • to whitelist/blacklist storing items in your history/cache by URL? They have it for just about everything else!

    Right-click, go to "View Page Info", and click "Permissions". It should be right there. Any takers on writing an extension for this?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by y5 (993724) *
        But isn't that why there's a master password? I'd use that feature and protect it.

  • Mozilla Links (Score:4, Informative)

    by Björn (4836) on Tuesday December 09 2008, @09:05AM (#26045911)
    There is a good article [mozillalinks.org] at Mozilla Links, about 3.1 beta 2.

  • It's interesting that IE actually had the private browsing feature with IE 8 Beta first. While I have no interest in going back to IE whatsoever, it's a very good thing that they're finally building innovative features, and it's also a good thing that Firefox is having to play catch-up feature-wise for the first time. Wow - real competition in the browser space - what is this, 1998???

  • I really do hope that the submitter is confused and that Firefox will not be spawning background processes, or else that would be the end of Firefox.

  • I've been using a simpler solution for a few years (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Skapare (16644) on Tuesday December 09 2008, @09:28AM (#26046175) Homepage

    My solution is that each time I start a web browser, it first runs through a script that creates a replica of the .mozilla directory in a unique place. The HOME environment variable is set to the unique directory. When it's done, I exit and just wipe out that directory.

    • I've been using a simpler solution for a few years

      I love Slashdot.

      Only on Slashdot would it be "simpler" to code a custom script that automatically runs when starting a particular application, generates a new temporary profile, sets an environment variable to use that profile, and deletes the profile on exit; rather than sometimes click a menu item marked "private".

      I'm not disagreeing that your solution is simpler, by the way. It is actually a great way to force a particular behavior in a robust way, and is simple to use once implemented. But it's only "simpler" for Slashdotters!

  • Privacy and URLs (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CopaceticOpus (965603) on Tuesday December 09 2008, @01:14PM (#26049049)

    Does this version resolve the privacy flaw in 3.0? Namely, the fact that the autocomplete history for the URL bar is not erased, even when the user manually clears all available privacy options?

    • Again, did you even use the beta? CTRL-TAB is still there and works as it did in 3.0. They just removed the fancy tab previews they had been experimenting with.

    • Relax. CTRL+TAB is still there, only without the cute screen preview menu from the previous beta.

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