Delete History

Private Browsing is the all the buzz, with the latest browsers boasting to hide all of your internet history. We decided to put both Mozilla Firefox 3.5 and Internet Explorer 8 to the test, to find out just how private both browsers are.

What is Private Browsing?

Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 and later and Mozilla Firefox 3.5 and later both provide”Private Browsing,” or “InPrivate Browsing” as Microsoft calls it. Both browsers claim Private Browsing will allow you to browse the Internet without the browsers retaining any of the data about which sites and pages you have visited.

Private Browsing in Mozilla Firefox 3.5 and later

Private Browsing was first included in as a feature in Mozilla Firefox 3.5 which was released on June 13th 2009.

What Private Browsing wont retain in Mozilla Firefox 3.5 and later

According to Mozilla, Private Browsing in Mozilla Firefox 3.5 and later helps prevent your visited pages, form and search bar entries, passwords, download list entries, cookies and web cache files from being retained by the browser.
Enabling Private Browsing in Mozilla Firefox 3.5 and later is really easy, check out our guide.

InPrivate Browsing in Internet Explorer 8 and later

InPrivate Browsing was first included in as a feature in Internet Explorer 8 which was released on March 19th 2009.

What InPrivate Browsing wont retain in Internet Explorer 8 and later

According to Microsoft, InPrivate Browsing in Internet Explorer 8 helps prevent your browsing history, form data, cookies, temporary Internet files, and usernames and passwords from being retained by the browser.
Enabling InPrivate Browsing in Internet Explorer 8 and later is really easy, check out our guide.

So does it work?

While both browsers have definately made huge progress in hiding your history. Its still possible to find the browsing history by looking up the computers DNS cache.

To check what is in your DNS Cache, Click on Start | Run and type in cmd.exe

At the DOS Prompt type in ipconfig /displaydns

Even after exiting both browsers any websites you have visited will still be present in the DNS Cache.

To delete your DNS Cache, at the DOS Prompt type in ipconfig /flushdns

This will delete your DNS Cache for now, but any other websites you visit will reapper in your DNS Cache