Mozilla on Monday released a new 'private browsing' feature to testers of Minefield, Mozilla's testbed application for new browser innovations.
When toggled, the feature takes your Web history, user names, passwords, searches and cookies and bins them the second you close the window, effectively making it appear as though the session never existed.
Monday's Minefield build included said privacy mode in all its glory, giving browser users the freedom to hide their browsing habits from others.
Similar to the implementation found in browsers made by Apple, Microsoft and Google, the new mode can be started at any time during a browsing session. However, users must allow their existing window (with any open tabs) to be shut down while using the freshly opened 'private' one. Once they close it, it will simply re-open their original browsing session.
Users can also opt to have every session start in privacy mode, which could be a useful setting on public computers.
The feature has been on Firefox's road map for some time now--Mozilla's bug tracker has it posted back in mid-2004--but it could not be completed in time for Firefox 3's release in June. In the meantime, users have been able to achieve similar results using several extensions, the most notable being Stealther.
Users expect to see privacy mode making its way into Firefox 3.1, which will feature privacy and performance tweaks, along with improvements to the built-in tagging system. Information on how to become a tester can be found on Mozilla's site.
This article was first published as a blog on CNET News.com.
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