When you browse the web in a regular, nonincognito window, the browser stores the URL, or web address, of every page you visit and keeps that information even after you close the window you’re in. That makes it easier for you to retrace your steps and find the same web pages again sometime later.
The browser also stores cookies, which are little files that websites and advertisers embed in websites. Next time your browser loads a page with elements from a company’s servers, the information is sent back. Cookies have lots of functions, such as letting you go to password-protected sites without logging in each time and keeping track of what you place in a shopping cart. They also let big advertising companies, such as Google’s DoubleClick, track you from site to site across the web.
Private windows act differently.
If you’re using incognito mode, “At the end of each session your cookies go away and you get a whole new set the next time you start,” Ur says. The most obvious change you’ll notice after a privacy browsing session is that it doesn’t show up under the History tab in your browser. But you may also notice less tracking from advertisers. If you search for a product—blenders, say—in a private window, you’re not as likely to start seeing cooking supplies show up in web ads over the next few days.
Firefox adds a layer of tracking protection to its private browsing mode. This helps protect against a technique known as fingerprinting, in which data collectors track you around the web by comparing variables such as which browser version and operating system you’re using, which graphics card you have installed, and your IP address.
In Private Browsing, Incognito Mode – it has a lot of names, but it’s the same basic feature in every browser. Private browsing offers some improved privacy, but it’s not a silver bullet that makes you completely anonymous online. Private Browsing mode changes the way your browser behaves, whether you’re using Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Apple Safari, Opera or any other browser – but it doesn’t change the way anything else behaves.
What Browsers Normally Do
When you browse normally, your web browser stores data about your browsing history. When you visit a website, your browser logs that visit in your browser history, saves cookies from the website, and stores form data it can autocomplete later. It also saves other information, such as a history of files you’ve downloaded, passwords you’ve chosen to save, searches you’ve entered in your browser’s address bar, and bits of web pages to speed page load times in the future (also known as the cache).
What Private Browsing Does
When you enable Private Browsing mode your web browser doesn’t store this information at all. When you visit a website in private-browsing mode, your browser won’t store any history, cookies, form data – or anything else. Some data, like cookies, may be kept for the duration of the private browsing session and immediately discarded when you close your browser.
Private browsing also functions as a completely isolated browser session – for example, if you’re logged into Facebook in your normal browsing session and open a private-browsing window, you won’t be logged into Facebook in that private-browsing window. You can view sites with Facebook integration in the private-browsing window without Facebook tying the visit to your logged-in profile. This also allows you to use the private-browsing session to log into multiple accounts at once – for example, you could be logged into a Google account in your normal browsing session and log into another Google account in the private-browsing window.
Private browsing protects you from people with access to your computer snooping at your browsing history – your browser won’t leave any tracks on your computer. It also prevents websites from using cookies stored on your computer to track your visits. However, your browsing is not completely private and anonymous when using private-browsing mode.
Threats On Your Computer
Private Browsing prevents your web browser from storing data about you, but it doesn’t stop other applications on your computer from monitoring your browsing. If you have a key logger or spyware application running on your computer, that application could monitor your browsing activity. Some computers may also have special monitoring software that tracks web browsing installed on them – private browsing won’t protect you against parental-control-type applications that take screenshots of your web browsing or monitor the websites you access.
Private browsing prevents people from snooping on your web browsing after it’s occurred, but they can still snoop while it’s occurring – assuming they have access to your computer. If your computer is secure, you shouldn’t have to worry about this.
source : how to geek
