A Study on Private Browsing [pdf]
duckduckgo.com
duckduckgo.com
2. However, 75.8 ± 2.2% of people who use Private Browsing incorrectly identify the protection that it provides. As 66.5 ± 2.5% overestimate its benefits, this leaves a majority of Private Browsing users exposed more than they think they are.
3. When people find out what private browsing actually does, 65.9 ± 2.4% feel “Surprised”, “Misled”, “Confused” or “Vulnerable.” 64.0 ± 2.6% of people believe their web browser should do more to protect their privacy, and 84.2 ± 1.9% are open to trying to a different major web browser if it would provide more privacy protection
Calling it Private Browsing is like installing antivirus on a computer and telling end-users that it's a "secure computer"; it only addresses one threat to privacy and not the largest ones.
When end users read "Private", they reasonably expect that it is private overall, and it's not at all. In other contexts it would be a form of fraud on consumers. I don't know how many end users are aware that there are serious privacy threats, but few grasp what they are, understand the technology, and can distinguish between the different kinds of threats, much less grasp what Private Browsing really does and apply that knowledge. (Heck, I'm not even 100% sure of what Private Browsing does.)
It's unintentional I think - the terminology is by and for geeks. The browser vendors really should change the term.
> Private Browsing mode only prevents your browser history from being recorded on your computer and does not offer any additional protection such as preventing the websites you visit from collecting your information (e.g. your searches on a search engine). How does that make you feel?
> Options: Surprised, Misled, Confused, Vulnerable, Neutral, Content
Given the structure of the question and ratio of positive to negative answer options, I'm actually surprised that about a third of people were still Neutral or Content.
Anything else? Nothing to worry about if you do nothing wrong seems to be the common saying.
This doesn't seem too inaccurate.
When you search for something on the Google search engine using private browsing, presumably you have not taken the time to login to your Google account in the private window. Therefore your search won't be saved in your account's search history. That's the behavior the user is expecting, and it's what they mean when they say "prevents search engines from knowing my searches".
It seems pedantic to point out that of course, technically, the search engine knows your search.
How else would you advise a typical user to perform "embarrassing" searches? Don't do it at all? Even if you use DuckDuckGo it will be in your browser history.
What users care about is what's saved in their history. Many users probably don't even understand the difference between browser history and Google account search history.
But private browsing works for both (provided you don't login to your account in the private window).
Users don't care if, theoretically, Google could fingerprint their private browsing session. Unless they care about ad tracking, which is why I only addressed search history in my original comment.
Yeah sure maybe Google doesn't fingerprint users but there's nothing stopping other sites from doing it. Perhaps, for example, the site you're viewing in an incognito session. Advertisers, for example, would have quite an interest in associating incognito sessions with normal sessions.
You wouldn't want Robin driving the bat-mobile now, would you?
This was the very first time any meta search engine (search engine that combines results from multiple search engines) was added to any of the most popular browsers.
They've also added it to Firefox Focus (at least at the time when it was released on Android).
So, it's fair to say that they have some sort of collaboration between them. Wouldn't count on it getting more serious than that, but I would still love to see it happen.