[clug] Private Browsing?

[George at Clug]

Thank you all who have been responding to this topic. I had not
heard about Ghostery.



I had noticed that once a [normal] browser session was started, its
authentication credentials were available to each and every other
[normal] browser session, whether in a new tab or a new instance of
Firefox.


I can only assume the same is true within Private sessions too.


This behavior worries me as it would indicate that any session would
be able to access credentials of any other session (in another tab or
separate instance). I first ran into this issue when assisting a web
developer design a system that users had a habit of opening multiple
records in different tabs or instances. Te same record details were
available from all instances causing conflicts. It then made me
realise that if you opened pages/records from different websites, then
they potentially would be able to see each other's data. Not a
pleasant thought security wise.



I had not researched about what and how cookies or other identifiers
live beyond all instances being closed. 



When closing all instances and opening a new instance of Firefox, I
frequently get the message "Firefox is still running, you have to
close Firefox before opening again" kind of message. Has anyone else
noticed this message?  It kind of gives me the impression that, at
least at times, Firefox does not actually close when you think it has.
Hopefully a power off and power on would fully clean it out.


Probably not being as paranoid as I should be, but when it matters I
usually close all instances of Firefox before going to another web
site, however I have not been rebooting or powering off and on again.


This is a very interesting tread, any web developers out there who
want to comment, or anyone with knowledge of how we are tracked these
days?


"How we are tracked over the Internet" would be a great topic for
CLUG, if anyone had the knowledge.



George.