Private Browsing: investigation led to unexpected results
By Gina on August 9, 2010 | Computer Security, private browsing, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, vulnerabilities, flaw, web browser, research
Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and Safari became sources of an investigation which was dedicated to find out details about private browsing modes. It is well known that all these notorious web browsers have private browsing modes that are configured to delete the most obvious signs of online activity such as cookies, browsing history and the browser's cache. The question was: are all these features help to keep your browsing habits private?
Four researchers from Stanford and Carnegie Mellon Universities decided to answer to this question. A research they’ve made will be presented at the 19th USINEX Security Symposium on 11 August-13 August 2010.
A research has shown that private browsing is used most often by people visiting adult sites. Analysts used specially crafted advertisements that make a note of the state of the machine. They found out that private browsing is not so private. It has its flaws. Browsers did not properly isolate researchers’ private sessions from non-private ones, with the result that suitably crafted sites could trace visitors between private and non-private sessions.
All in all, the private browsing modes work well in theory but in fact their advantageous performance depends on additional web page security and browser plug-ins and add-ons.
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