Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Launching InPrivate/Incognito ala CLI and InPrivate testing of its claims ;)

This is a by the way article since i've got nothing better to do sitting at a client after a network migration.

Alright, a little history, Internet Explorer 8/Chrome comes with a feat called InPrivate/Incognito browsing. InPrivate and Incognito, as the name implies ensure whatever you do in that browsing session is not cached, remembered or anything likewise. This is extremely cool especially if you use internet banking and other sites you wish not to place "traces" of including porn and warez sites (haha). 

If you are like me, you launch certain websites through an icon on the desktop and would like to use InPrivate automatically, launch the shortcut like this:

Internet Explorer:
iexplore.exe  -private http://www.maybank2u.com


Google Chrome:
chrome.exe --incognito "http://www.maybank2u.com"

In the case above, i am opening http://www.maybank2u.com InPrivate.

Testing IE 8's InPrivate function and the results
What i did:
  1. I cleared all and whatever cache i had (including index.dat - fresh index.dat)
  2. Cleared all passwords, caches in temp internet folders etc..
  3. Cleared anything else there may be using Advance System Care-see below screenie  (http://www.iobit.com/), 

Ok, here's what i wanted to see/find:
  1. Does InPrivate create any files during and when the browser is shutdown
  2. Does InPrivate write indexes to index.dat
  3. Does it create any phantom caches anywhere else.
Tools i use:
  1. Process Explorer (procmon)
  2. File Monitor (filemon)
  3. Advance SystemCare by IoBit
  4. Index.dat suite 
  5. Check cookies/histories
The test:
  1. Launched www.astalavista.com
  2. Checked tools (while they were running)
  3. Checked against the tools
The results: (After closing the browser)
  1. No history found!
  2. No cookies!
  3. No temp files!
  4.  Index.dat cached everything else that i did previously, inspite running cleanups..sheeezee (hmm) but didn't cache stuff when i used InPrivate
So, i am convinced, InPrivate lives to its promise. Hah!..cool. Next up, checks on Chrome's InPrivate.

Cheers!

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