WSJ reports Microsoft diluted IE8's privacy features to appease advertisers inside and outside the company
By Paul Miller 
posted August 2nd 2010 2:38PM
posted August 2nd 2010 2:38PM
Of course, we'd be much more up in arms about this whole "users vs. advertisers" decision making process if InPrivate Filtering wasn't such a wild proposal to begin with. As some ad organizations argued, it would block some legitimate functionality and ads in addition to the more nefarious tracking beacons, and then there's the fact that even knowledgeable, competent users don't typically enact this sort of privacy, despite extensions that make it possible. In a way we all make the sort of decision that Microsoft made in 2008: do we value the functionality and content enabled and funded by invasive marketing techniques over our privacy? Of course, most Engadget readers are also familiar with another decision that makes most of this article's hand wringing moot: we don't use Internet Explorer.
Not a big surprise: money always trumps privacy. Microsoft just gives more people a new incentive to not use IE, while showing how little they care about customer's privacy.
@oldwiz I don't understand, which browser actually has such ad-blocking privacy features enabled by default?
I use Chrome and Firefox, and neither appears to. Not sure why there is so much IE hate today. Sure, IE6 was horrific, but thats like hating on Windows 7 due to bad experiences with Windows ME. I wonder if IE9 will change attitudes amongst the geek-elite.
@oldwiz
you clearly fail to understand what inprivate filtering is!
it is a privacy feature that blocks the content which is not hosted on the same domain name as the page you are visiting (if such domain name has been encountered more than 10 times since the last time you removed browsing history).
for example, this mean that if you have visited more than 10 sites displaying google adsense ads, you won't ever see again any google ads on any website you will visit since IE8 inprivate filtering will block the domain used to load ads from google adsense (you can easily understand how dramatic it would have been for web sites like engadget who rely on ads to earn money if this setting was enabled by default in IE).
This is the same for google analytics, and any ads/tracking system. So, it's a kind of intelligent ad blocking solution that lean which domains names are used for tracking and displaying ads (although you can also include a list of predefined domain to block if you want to block every tracking solutions or ads even before having encountered them 10 times). Enabling this setting by default would not have hurted MS that much, it would have hurted the whole web economy severely (since free content rely on ads to live).
You can feel free to enable this feature, since it is included in Internet Explorer 8, even if it is not enabled by default.
No other web browser have a such privacy feature built in (you need to install plugins to have the same kind of feature).
So, that's clearly stupid to say it's a reason not to use IE when other browsers do not have this kind of feature at all!
(ps: inprivate filtering it NOT the same thing as inprivate mode (aka porn mode) or whatever the name is on other browsers)
@oldwiz You do realize that its the same with all the major browsers?
In fact its a surprise they even considered making private browsing the default. I can't imagine Google ever considering it for Chrome or Apple considering it for Safari or even Mozilla and Opera for their browsers (since they make most of their money for google searches and Google works so much better by collecting data)
@oldwiz
To make it automatically enabled whenever you open IE8:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Safety\PrivacIE]
"StartMode"=dword:00000001
@Ducman69
True, but:
"...even if you turn it on it doesn't stay on; you have to turn it on each browsing session."
I think this severely limits the functionality of this feature, since it will have to re-learn which ads to block.
@Ducman69 Konqueror has it on by default!
... Not that anybody uses that, either...
@lnk654 "Not sure why there is so much IE hate today."
Check out the red column here:
http://www.quirksmode.org/css/contents.html
It's willful ignorance on the part of the IE developers. They think that a majority share gives them the right to dictate what standards they will adopt so they can ram more proprietary garbage like Silverlight down people's throats.
They disabled CSS layout in their email client by using an inferior rendering engine to IE's - you might say how is that possible, well, it uses Microsoft Word. I'd paste in the unsupported elements but there's so many:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa338201(office.12).aspx
To web developers and in general people who try to drive web technology forward, IE developers are assholes and as a web developer, I genuinely hope something horrible happens to each and every one of them for their irresponsible attitude.
They have turned so many people in the industry away from them that it's going to bite them in the ass hard. Look at how well webkit has taken off in the mobile phone industry. With Chrome gaining share, this will one day have a profound effect. I personally wish the big social players (Google/Youtube, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Twitter, Vimeo) would simply group together and block IE from using their sites. The worst that happens is everyone moves to Chrome, Firefox or Opera. The world will be a better place because of it.
What's the point of Alt? This story would very well fit in with all the other ones on "classic" Engadget. You guys have too many subsidiaries.
@bob1000
Also, the other story on the front page about electrons in stressed graphene behaving like they were in magnetic fields in excess of 300 Tesla seems like an 'alt' story.
People still use Internet Explorer!?
What a shocker!
@Aguiluz Yep. I just saw an ad for IE 9 yesterday.
@Aguiluz
6 out of 10 computer users apparently.
Of course about half of those are corporate terminals but still...
@Aguiluz I use IE. There's nothing wrong with it. Never crashed. Web pages are snappy to load. Don't see a reason to change, like those other 6 out of 10 people.
@Aguiluz
Firefox and/or chrome FTW!!!!
@Aguiluz
yes, people who care about security and stability use Internet Explorer!
Internet Explorer 7 and 8 on vista/7 is the only browser to be fully sandboxed
even flash player and adobe reader plugins are sandboxed within IE.
this means that if there is a 0day flaw in IE, flash or adobe reader, there is no risk of being infected by a malware.
As opposite, firefox/safari/opera are not sandboxed at all, and chrome doesn't sandbox flash and adobe reader yet. (they run outsite the chrome sandboxed process, which makes chrome users vulnerable to flash/adobe reader flaws).
Please note that during the Pwn2Own contest, although IE was defeated (as firefox and safari were), the hacker has been unable to gain write access to the hard disk (even in the user profile) because of the sandbox. To win the contest, hackers just needed to obtain read access to the disk content (the IE sandbox is designed to block writing, not reading! reading can't be blocked yet for compatibility reasons with plugins). But he couldn't have installed a malware on the computer or even on the user profile!
@lnk654
That's fantastic news to me. Then the only major problem I have with recommending IE to friends and family is the way downloads are treated by giving a run option upon the beginning of a download. Far too many people have installed fake antivirus programs and other crap thanks to this. I like the way Chrome handles it much better.
@lnk654
It has nothing to do with that in a lot of ways. Internet explorer is just somewhat unorganized. I hate seeing computers with ie and 5 toolbars... that and that add ons+ customization just defeat ie in almost every way. Really, the only thing internet explorer is worth is to download chrome or Firefox.
@lnk654 Don't need write access to read a user's data.
@Princess Leia 0rgana You serious? I immediately changed to google chrome on my windows notebook as soon as I found out how much more versatile and snappy it was.
@Aguiluz I know i'll get downranked for this but....IE is the best browser on the market based on the sum of its parts. There are certain (usually smaller) features that other browsers might do better, but summaratively IE is the best.
@lnk654 Thank you lnk654 for your posts today.
I had no idea about the private filtering you could enable.
And had no idea about the sandboxing.
Until today, I was an IE loather. Only using it when websites wouldn't work in Opera or Chrome (my 2 weapons of choice).
I shall now look upon IE less critically than I have in the past.
If they can sort out speed, and lose some of the junk it could haul me back in. In much the same way I have moved back from OSX to Windows 7. Even contemplating a Windows 7 phone
Please keep posting your counters to the juvenile hoard, your posts are educational, at least to me. Thanks.
Maybe it's all that "beaconing" that makes it the slowest??
maybe not.
The most amazing part of this story is that this means some people still use IE
shocking...
The internet has become a cesspool for advertising scum bags...I remember back in the good ol days...no popups, no annoying blinking ads, with video AND audio...really pisses me off when I'm listening to a song and got the volume turned up, then I pause it and go to read a page, and all of a sudden out of nowhere I hear "Do you have trouble with erectile dysfunction?" -- Back then the biggest annoying ads were those stupid AOL cds they sent in the mail, but at least in the end they made decent coasters \ frisbees.
@DoctarPeppar:
I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've almost been given a heartattack by talking ads because my speakers were turned on and up.
F those ads!
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Firefox/Opera/etc. have private browsing modes which have to be activated every time? It seems like more of a design decision than excessive corporate interest on the fact it has to be enabled/is not persistent.
@kupo
It's not hard to set FF3.6 to have a persistent privacy mode if you wanted to.
@kupo This feature is more equatable to AdBlock than to Private Browsing. When you visit a website, this checks for content from other websites and blocks it if you've seen it 10 times already. Private Browsing in Firefox doesn't record where you're browsing, form data or cookies. The two are completely different.
I still use IE and I use InPrivateFiltering when it's time to look at porn.
@Kloc:
So you use InPrivate Filtering every time you open IE then, eh?
@Jordan
Does the internet have any other uses?
@Kloc:
Not that I'm aware of
@Kloc Masturbating and shopping... That's it
Sorry, I know you MS haters want to spread as much bile and misinformation as you can but IE is actually GAINING marketshare, while your beloved Firefox is declining:
http://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=1&sample=32
If IE9 is as good as is being touted then expect even more gains for IE. Guess there will be more brainless articles like this when that happens.
@theefman
Oh man, IE9 is rendering and loading extremely fast, and the scrolling is buttery smooth, I used to absolutely hate IE, Firefox and Chrome both were not great either, I kept myself fooled that those were the best... until I had tried Opera... if only IE9 and Opera would make some kind of twisted lovechild.... but alas one can only dream....
@theefman We don't doubt that IE is gaining market share, or even that it has the highest market share. We just doubt it's worth a damn.
After all, IE6 was also the most used browser, even though even in its day it was tripe on a bike.
Another reason I'm sticking with Firefox with noScript, even though it's dog slow now compared to Safari/Chrome.
I actually DO enable security that limits browsing content, must be one of the few according to the article. If i'm on a site that I trust, it gets disabled with a click. NoScript + Firefox = win.
Oh, and ietab for the stupid sites that "require" internet explorer.
@ogboot
Thanks for the IE Tab recommendation! I found the plus version.
Like I needed another reason to hate Internet Explorer.
@Professor Hubert J Farnsworth
You hate IE even more because it has a privacy feature (which is not enabled by default) that other browsers don't even have?
what a brilliant thought it is!
@lnk654 You are prompted on first run to enable it and other browsers do have the equivalent of InPrivate Browsing\Filtering\etc. Try again.
@lnk654
Wrong:
I hate Internet Explorer because of its slow loading times.
I hate Internet Explorer more because of the stupid accelerators which by default do nothing but slow down the browser even more.
I hate Internet Explorer even more because it has no official version of AdBlock.
I hate Internet Explorer even more because of Compatibility view, which insists on correcting "broken pages" like Engadget, even though I have disabled the button in the options window.
In a somewhat apt comparison, Internet Explorer crap and this privacy feature is the icing on this cake of hatred.
Also, Google Chrome has incognito (a mode similar to InPrivate) which can be enabled by default by adding -incognito to the command shortcut (it also has AdBlock).
@Professor Hubert J Farnsworth
IE8 has command line switches to do the same stuff as well. You think Google is waving some big flag that says "please turn our ads off" ?
This article is just click/flame bait anyways.
*shrugs* Don't care. Haven't used IE for anything other then internal company apps since er....2003 I think.
who uses IE still ? firefox, chrome, opera and safari are way better and years ahead of IE.
@devilrejected : Apparently millions and millions of people more than the other web browsers. I can't say that all the other browsers are light years ahead, when IE has managed to pull several awesome features that other browsers implement later.
What is Internet Explorer?