The incognito function of Chrome doesn't do anything more than what clearing private data does in any other browser. More importantly, it does nothing to make your browser more secure from all the malware that's hidden in the HTML of some websites. To do that you need to control what is actually run on your computer when you open a site in your browser.
I do most of my browsing using Firefox with the NoScript and Adblock Plus addons installed. These addons block all adds, scripts, Java and Flash applets. As a result, on sites like this, I get none of those annoying, winking-blinking adds at the top of the page. Websites use Java and Flash to throw all sorts of shit at you, so disabling them has the added benefit of protecting you from most of the malware and page redirects many of the dodgier sites hide in their HTML.
However, on occasion, Adblock and NoScript will interfere with some desired function of an important website (see NoScript link below), and there are times when I want to view Flash, so I also installed another FF addon called IE Tab. This allows you to right click on a page in FF, or click the IE Tab icon if you've placed it in the toolbar, and directly open the page in Internet Explorer which appears as a separate tab in FF. Very cool, but I don't like IE. So I installed Opera, which is a much quicker and more secure browser than IE (edit: the new IE 8 is much more secure than previous versions). In the IE Tab configuration window, under the External Application tab there is a setting for External App - set this for Opera (in the case of WindowsXP, it would be C:\Program Files\Opera\opera.exe). Then if you ever find a page that doesn't function properly because of the above security addons, just right click anywhere in that page and chose View Page In Ext.App and the page will open in Opera with nothing disabled.
NoScript https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722
(Note: you can right-click on the NoScript toolbar icon to allow scripts on any page.
Important! in order to be able to post on this site, you must right click on the NoScript toolbar icon and choose Allow sex141.com - you only need to do this once.)
Adblock Plus https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865
(Note: if an undesired image/add does make it through the filters, just right-click on the image and choose Adblock Image from the context menu and it's gone forever.)
IE Tab https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1419
I never use Google, by the way; they collect and archive far too much info on your individual searches. That's right kids, somewhere on a Google computer is a record of all your searches over the years matched to your IP address - after all, targeting ads based on user search history is how Google makes it's money. To avoid this, I use
ScroogleScraper, which is a site that submits your search request to Google and then displays the exact same search results but with your personal info stripped out - think of Scroogle as a proxy server between you and Google.
Scroogle http://www.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/scraper.htm
If anyone is interested, I can show you how to make Scroogle your default FF toolbar search engine.
This is what my browser window looks like with these addons installed:
(edit: FireFox 3.5 now has an option under 'Tools' called 'Start Private Browsing' that does the same thing as the incognito function in the Google Chrome browser.)
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Last edited by Marsupial at 7-8-2009 11:21 ]
