Private browsing mode

coffeehound

Can anyone advise pls: when you are viewing a website in private mode, does it prevent that site seeing other cookies on your machine? Does it vary much from browser to browser?

Neil_Jones

Think of Private Browsing as a fresh clean browser installation with cookies, settings and whatever else that only last as long as that session. When you come out of it all that gets forgotten.

So to answer your question: It depends. It's not browser specific, though on more recent versions of Firefox and Chrome you have the option to disable certain types of cookies whether they're first or third party.

joeypesci

coffeehound wrote: »

Can anyone advise pls: when you are viewing a website in private mode, does it prevent that site seeing other cookies on your machine? Does it vary much from browser to browser?

No. This article best explains it


https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/07/19/smut_sites_sharing/

Ant555

joeypesci wrote: »

No. This article best explains it


https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/07/19/smut_sites_sharing/

An interesting article - are cookies browser-specific?

If someone was logged in to Facebook on Chrome and then went into something else in Firefox then is there any shared data between browser cookies or is it insulated at that level?

Frozen_up_north

I use the private browsing mode with Firefox, chiefly with news web sites. It’s annoying to see adverts based on your previous web page visits... for example I might have been looking at Rigol UK (a Chinese test equipment company), then look at the pages of the local newspaper, only to find adverts appear for Rigol.

By closing the original page, all cookies are deleted automatically. Clearly if you want the convenience of a site remembering your log-in (eg this forum), use the non private browsing mode. In Firefox you can flick between the modes, retaining your open pages/tabs.

Be aware that private browsing is no more than an auto delete of cookies/history, it doesn’t hide your browsing from your service provider who will log every page visited! If you want a little more privacy consider using a VPN, although the paranoid should ask who is really providing the VPN service, it could be anyone, even a government agency.

oldernonethewiser

Frozen_up_north wrote: »

I use the private browsing mode with Firefox, chiefly with news web sites. It’s annoying to see adverts based on your previous web page visits... for example I might have been looking at Rigol UK (a Chinese test equipment company), then look at the pages of the local newspaper, only to find adverts appear for Rigol.

By closing the original page, all cookies are deleted automatically. Clearly if you want the convenience of a site remembering your log-in (eg this forum), use the non private browsing mode. In Firefox you can flick between the modes, retaining your open pages/tabs.

Be aware that private browsing is no more than an auto delete of cookies/history, it doesn’t hide your browsing from your service provider who will log every page visited! If you want a little more privacy consider using a VPN, although the paranoid should ask who is really providing the VPN service, it could be anyone, even a government agency.

Where do these adverts appear?


I tend not to use private browsing but do use adblockers.

Frozen_up_north

The adverts appear in newspaper articles. An adblock browser stops them too, but I prefer to browse on my phone and the adblock browser is poor compared to Firefox

RumRat

Don't forget to clear your DNS cache on the PC if you want to rid yourself of all things surfed....
Start - type - cmd - enter - In command prompt type - ipconfig/flushdns - close.

oldernonethewiser

Frozen_up_north wrote: »

The adverts appear in newspaper articles. An adblock browser stops them too, but I prefer to browse on my phone and the adblock browser is poor compared to Firefox

Thanks for the explanation.


I used to use Firefox Focus on my mobile but prefer the DuckDuckGo browser now.



It is amazing how many ads/tracking cookies there are on websites when you use a "vanilla" browser.

steviebuk

Ant555 wrote: »

An interesting article - are cookies browser-specific?

If someone was logged in to Facebook on Chrome and then went into something else in Firefox then is there any shared data between browser cookies or is it insulated at that level?

Yes they are browser specific. So chrome cookies won't talk to firefox. Other option is using TOR. Its slow due to it being a sort of free VPN but its OK. Be aware TOR uses exit nodes. Really simply put you go to Google but via TOR you can end up going through 10 machines with your traffic encrypted until you get to the 11 machine the exit node that then goes to Google for you and sends the data back through all 10 machines. Google will only ever see the exit node and won't know you exist. The exit node however can be a comprised machine and could watch all that you look at. But as long as nothing illegal, then I wouldn't worry about that.

coffeehound

Very interesting, thanks guys. I don't know enough abut IT to understand it all but that's given a much better insight into how things work. I don't understand the actual route by which a site can get information from cookies or other sites, but it's clear that private browsing modes do not offer much privacy. BTW it wasn't pr0n I was particularly thinking of, it was a government site that apparently gathers data on users that caused the tinfoil hat episode. TOR sounds like the way forward, then . . .