Explorer 8's Privacy Feature Boon to Users

... though advertisers surely won't like Microsoft's addition

By Nick McMaster, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 27, 2008 4:05 PM CDT

(Newser) – The privacy features available with the next version of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer will appeal to users “paranoid or perverted,” Peter Bright writes on Ars Technica, but will “go some way to curtailing the power of large Internet companies to monitor how people are using the web.” Explorer 8’s InPrivate Browsing automatically deletes session history and cookies when the window is closed.

A second new feature is more unique, writes Bright. InPrivate Blocking stops sophisticated tracking of the kind employed by Google Analytics. Such referral tracking relies on code loaded from one site every time the user visits a page using Analytics. When IE8 detects that more than 10 sites have loaded a script from the same address, it considers the script a tracking tool and blocks it.

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Internet Explorer 8 has new privacy features. (Microsoft)

In this Jan. 6, 2008 file photo, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates pauses during his keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Microsoft's iconic frontman is finally giving up his... (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, file)

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The new feature won't be welcomed by all. The tracking information is not collected for nothing; it is used to improve ad targeting.
- Peter Bright, Ars Technica

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Explorer 8's Privacy Feature Boon to Users