Microsoft has outlined some of the protection measures in place on Internet Explorer 8. In a recent blog post on the IE8Blog, Andy Zeigler detailed four measures that will appear on the new Web browser that offer more control over how users can manage their privacy and browsing history.
IE8 will add layers of privacy protection. (IMG:J.Anderson)
One new feature, called "InPrivate Browsing," will stop that over-the-shoulder worry by not storing the browsing history, cookies, temporary files, and other data. The feature is meant to be used on computers that are shared within a home or office and on public computers, such as those in an Internet Café.
The technology behind this feature will turn cookies into “session” cookies, and the DOM storage feature -- revamped in IE8 -- behaves the same way. New history events are simply not recorded. For example, typed addresses and search terms are one-time only, as well as visited links. Likewise, there is no storage of passwords or form data.
Because sites can track users without cookies, Microsoft has added another new feature, also a part of the "InPrivate" feature set, dubbed "InPrivate Blocking." The blog post explains that InPrivate Blocking is designed to give users information "about third-party content that has a line of sight into your web browsing," offering a choice about what information is shared with these sites.
"InPrivate Blocking keeps a record of third-party items like the one above as you browse. When you choose to browse with InPrivate, IE automatically blocks sites that have ‘seen’ you across more than ten sites. You can also manually choose items to block or allow, or obtain information about the third-party content directly from the site by clicking the ‘More information from this website’ link," Zeigler wrote.
Another InPrivate feature is tied closely to the InPrivate Blocking. Called "InPrivate Subscriptions," Zeigler describes them as follows:
"Some users want to protect their privacy, but don’t want to make granular decisions about content to block or allow. Users can delegate these decisions to publishers of InPrivate Subscriptions... InPrivate Subscriptions are simply RSS feeds of Regular Expressions that specify sub-downloads to block or allow. Anyone can publish an InPrivate Subscription on their website, just as they can offer an Accelerator or Web Slice on their website."
Lastly, there is an improvement to a feature currently found in Internet Explorer 7. Internet Explorer 7 saw the release of a feature called "delete browser history," which allows the removal of all the information collected by IE7 in one shot.
The problem, according to many who have used the feature, is that sometimes you want the history to go, but you would rather like to keep your cookies for now, thanks.
"IE8 solves this problem by adding an option that lets you keep cookies and temporary Internet files from websites saved in your Favorites list," Ziegler says. "To avoid having your favorite sites “forget you”, simply add them to your Favorites, and make sure the “Preserve Favorites website data” checkbox is selected. IE will preserve any cookies or cache files that were created by websites in your favorites."
Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 is due within a few days. It was announced in June that the second beta would be released in August. With five days left in the month, the wait should now be short.
There are currently no comments for this article. Be the first to comment! (no registration required)
Advertising
There are currently no comments for this article. Be the first to comment! (no registration required)