Private browsing has been around for a long while now.
Whether incognito mode, private mode, or InPrivate, there has long been a way to visit whatever sites you’d like without worrying about being tracked or accumulating a history of sites visited. Mozilla has released a new browser called “Focus” that is designed to allow users to browse privately. The idea is to keep advertisers from storing information on your computer or phone and using it to target their ads while you surf the internet. This can be a good thing, but it’s important to understand some risks involved with private browsing.
Focus is designed to block ad trackers, analytics, social trackers, and can seek out and block other trackers as well. It can also integrate into Safari on ios (the ios standard browser) and Firefox on your computer. After downloading the app you just open it and begin browsing, searching (on Yahoo,) or surfing as needed. There are no extra tabs or any bells and whistles at all but when you are done you just close the window with the “Erase” button and start again at the first screen. All the data is gone at that point. Like you were never there.
What Parents Should Know
While I am all for the battle for internet privacy and freedom from being tracked by marketers, private browsing presents a major problem when trying to protect our kids from inappropriate online content. Keep in mind that a popular name for private browsing is “Porn Mode.” The ability to view sites without anything being stored on your computer, including a history of your surfing habits, is, of course, a way for our kids to view adult content without us knowing.
Part of setting protections for your kids on their smartphone or tablet is turning off the ability to install a different browser. If you have installed an accountability or filtered browser then a new way to surf the web will completely undermine your attempts to protect them. While on the computer, filters like NetNanny will continue to block sites and accountability software such as Accountable2You will continue to report (though, with less detail) inappropriate activity. Even in private mode. While on mobile devices, however, especially ios devices, the accountability and filter app should be the only browser available to our kids.
Learn more about privacy and security from our Mobile Device Vocabulary Series.