Your tech navigator

I am sure once in a while many of us have to use a public computer to do some important work. It may be a friend’s computer or a café computer, you always leave traces of your work behind. This is because, by default, an internet browser stores information on the computer in the form of cache. Any person with sane knowledge can retrieve your confidential information using the cache. You may invite more trouble if you unknowingly click “Remember my password” option during your work.

Here I am going to show you how you can surf privately in different browsers using their inbuilt private surfing options so that you don’t leave any traces on public computers. Use these methods without fail.

IE8:

Internet Explorer 8 provides an option called ‘InPrivate Browsing’ which will switch your browser to a state that will leave no traces on the host computer. For activating the ‘InPrivate Browsing’ in IE8, press CTRL + SHIFT + P. Alternatively, you can go through the ‘Tools’ menu and selecting ‘InPrivate Browsing’.

A new window will open with private browsing activated. You’ll know you are surfing in the ‘InPrivate’ mode as the address bar will show its icon.

Google Chrome:

Google Chrome offers similar functionality and calls it the ‘Incognito Mode’. For activating the ‘Incognito Mode’, just press CTRL + SHIFT + N in Chrome. Alternatively you can click the ‘Customize and control’ button in Chrome and select ‘New incognito window’.

You’ll know you are surfing in the incognito mode as you will see its icon on the top-left corner of the window.

If you want Chrome to always open in Incognito mode then follow the steps shown in this post.

Mozilla Firefox: 

In Mozilla Firefox, browse privately by pressing CTRL + SHIFT + P. Alternatively, click ‘Tools’ >> ‘Start Private Browsing’. To return back to normal surfing mode, click ‘Tools’ >> ‘Stop Private Browsing’.

Safari:

In Safari, activate private browsing mode by clicking ‘General settings icon’ >> ‘Private Browsing...’

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