Firefox 3.1 beta 2 released with privacy mode

Beta 2 of Mozilla Firefox 3.1, which incorporates the faster TraceMonkey JavaScript engine as default, was finally made available earlier this week. Beyond the additional support for emerging web standards, this new beta introduces a feature called "Private Browsing", or the ability to go into a privacy mode where data such as various browser histories, cache data, cookies and temporary files will not be recorded. Private Browsing takes after Google Chrome's Incognito, which became the first browser to introduce this concept. What I find interesting is that unlike Google's Chrome, Mozilla's version doesn't show an icon indicating that you're browsing on the sly. Of course, the program title bar does state that you're using Private Browsing. Internet Explorer 8 will also feature a similar "InPrivate" feature when it is released.

To read more about this story:
- check out this blog post at Mozilla Developer Center
- check out this article at PC Magazine
- check out this article at Download.com

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