Trying to surprise someone with a gift or vacation plans? Private browsing will help keep your activities quiet.Įver used a computer in a hotel lobby or library to access your accounts? While always carries a certain amount of risk, private browsing can reduce it. You can use it to log into multiple email, social network, or bank accounts at the same time. There are plenty of valid reasons to use private browsing mode. If you're thinking private browsing will keep your activities hush-hush at the office, for example, you're probably wrong. Routers, firewalls, and proxy servers could be keeping tabs on your browsing activities, and private browsing mode won't get in the way of that. It's still very possible to see what you've been doing. On the computer, tablet, or phone you're using, yes, your temporary browsing data is removed. The short answer is not very, regardless of which browser you use. It may also technically be considered a proxy and not a true VPN, but that's a discussion you can leave to the more technically-inclined folks.īeyond the VPN, Opera's private browsing mode works like Chrome's. It's not a bulletproof VPN solution and it still doesn't keep your activities totally private, but it does provide additional protection. You can turn on a VPN connection to add another layer of secrecy to your browsing activities. Opera is noteworthy because its private browsing mode offers one truly unique feature. Browsing history, form data, and cookies are all wiped by default.

Safari's private browsing mode also removes temporary files when you close the window. Turn it on and Firefox will attempt to prevent sites from gathering data about your browsing habits. Mozilla also gives you an additional setting that can make Private Browsing a little more private:tracking protection. The list pretty much lines up with Chrome, IE, and Edge: browsing/search history and cookies are not saved, downloads and bookmarks are. Mozilla welcomes you to Firefox's Private Browsing mode with a nice, clear explanation of what it does and doesn't do.

Private tabs