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Microsoft Edge's Private Mode May Actually Record Your Browsing

tis true. I went to a machine with a fresh win 10 install, one which I never visited anandtech, or any site really. I opened a private tab and went to the anandtech home page, and then loaded the forums and a subforum and clicked on a random post. Here is what I found afterwards:

In the file V0100080.log:

Code: 
iVisited: [redacted]@http://www.anandtech.com

In some file with a GUID for a name:

Code: 
SBi+00tahttp://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2462590How can I speed up this crutch best? (Celeron J1800) - AnandTech
This is the thread I clicked on. Someone paid $450 for an atom machine. I feel sorry for this dude btw. But notice how text from that forum post that was visited in a private tab appears in this file for anyone with eyes to see. What??


Also, no less than 5 separate .json files contain the word "anandtech", even though it was never once seen on this machine except for this one private browser session that lasted all of 30 seconds. The word "anandtech" appears over 70 times in these 7 files. The word "purch" was also found in those files.

Yet another big win for a $400 billion market cap company that really cares about its customers.
 
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At this point, every time I open an internet browser I assume everything is open to the public. When you share anything with a couple million strangers, the expectations of privacy should be moderately low.
 
ronbo613 said:
At this point, every time I open an internet browser I assume everything is open to the public. When you share anything with a couple million strangers, the expectations of privacy should be moderately low.
Click to expand...

Yeah, anyone trusting "private browsing mode" in a browser to be 100% anonymous and secure is kidding themselves. This Edge bug aside, that's just not how computers work.

Don't do stuff in public (aka on the public internet) if you're worried about people in public seeing what you're doing.
 
I think the intention of the "private browsing" feature is that people who have access to your computer/user account can't see what you were browsing during that session.

As I understand it, MS is treating this (situation described in OP) as a bug.

There's a similar-ish bug in OS X with regard to graphics memory usage that potentially allows someone to see snapshots of a private browsing session, so this is hardly "of course, MS made this mistake" situation.
 
It wasn't a bug until they got caught :hmm:

If you have a private browsing mode for your browser the first thing a company should do in testing is look for traces. How the hell they didn't catch this "bug" is beyond me.

Also, why do people make excuses for companies by saying "well company X did or does the same thing". I was taught a long time ago that two wrongs don't make a right. Just because Apple did something similar it shouldn't excuse MS from accountability.
 
Its too much really...MS is kinda annoying me at this point, they are a few short steps from BEING malware...

Its negligence crossed with trump style jerky ballsy-ness.

Like, "we are MS, we can do whatever and still exist as a company...nya nya."

New browser is crap, check.
New OS does all kinds of things you dont want it to do, check.
MS is aware that people are upset and REFUSES to comment and REFUSES to change saying, "no its fine, shh". CHECK.
Tricks you into installing software like malware does, CHECKITY-CHECK
Uninstalls YOUR software when it wants for lols, Check.

Ive never seen anything like this from a software company.

incompetence
negligence
arrogance
dishonesty

How the mighty have fallen.
 
balloonshark said:
Also, why do people make excuses for companies by saying "well company X did or does the same thing". I was taught a long time ago that two wrongs don't make a right. Just because Apple did something similar it shouldn't excuse MS from accountability.
Click to expand...

I think this was aimed at me, and I was responding to this:
Dude111 said:
No surprise @ all seeing Microdorf made it!
Click to expand...

I don't feel the need to make excuses for MS, I could write a post a page long on what I perceive to be Microsoft's failings (and LPCTech has touched on some of them), I just felt the need to point out that mistakes such as this are hardly Microsoft-specific by any stretch of the imagination. This slip-up by MS does seem to rank fairly highly on the doofus scale; I wonder whether a dev thought "I'll implement it the simplest way I can to begin with, then come back to it later and do it properly once I've got the rest working", then forgot about it.
 
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mikeymikec said:
I don't feel the need to make excuses for MS, I could write a post a page long on what I perceive to be Microsoft's failings (and LPCTech has touched on some of them), I just felt the need to point out that mistakes such as this are hardly Microsoft-specific by any stretch of the imagination. This slip-up by MS does seem to rank fairly highly on the doofus scale; I wonder whether a dev thought "I'll implement it the simplest way I can to begin with, then come back to it later and do it properly once I've got the rest working", then forgot about it.
Click to expand...
Yes and it doesn't inspire confidence that there is no personal data being sent along with the so called telemetry data. If they screw up something as simple as private browsing then they sure can't handle a complicated process such as collecting data from your computer multiple times a day, transferring and storing it securely without scooping up your sensitive data.
 
ronbo613 said:
At this point, every time I open an internet browser I assume everything is open to the public. When you share anything with a couple million strangers, the expectations of privacy should be moderately low.
Click to expand...

Nah its just an example of a buggy Microsoft product. Other popular browsers private browsing mode don't have an issue with clearing out browsing data from the cache directories afterwards.

People who are careful and privacy aware can avoid spilling sensitive details about their lives while browsing the internet.
 
Possibly just a misunderstanding of what Private mode does/doesn't do:
Incognito mode can help keep your browsing private from other users, but it can't keep your browsing activities private from your ISP or online snoops. For that level of privacy, you'll need to connect to a virtual private network (VPN).

All incognito mode will do is erase your browsing and search histories while in private mode, as well as dump any tracking cookies you pick-up during your incognito session.
Click to expand...
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2106...easons-to-use-your-browsers-private-mode.html
 
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