Mozilla Private Browsing: stats released!

Theophany

Theophany

Theophany

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So the Mozilla analytics team recently revealed statistics on the usage of Firefox's Private (pr0n) browsing feature. In a way, we all already knew what that feature was for, just like we all know OJ is guilty as hell even if the evidence was refuted. But Mozilla announced the figures that confirmed it:

http://blog.mozilla.com/metrics/files/2010/08/time_of_day-1024x615.png

and how long did people tend to use the Private browsing feature?

http://blog.mozilla.com/metrics/files/2010/08/time_in-1024x615.png

...an average of 10 minutes. Which makes sense really, any longer and you're doing it wrong.

The full and painfully high-brow article is over on the Mozilla analytics blog here and is entitled 'Understanding Private Browsing', which seems a little redundant but I guess the open source community take themselves a little too seriously.

I mean, we all got what the guy in the Windows 7 advert was really talking about - "do your thing, clickety click and nobody knows what you've been up to, your secret's safe"?? :p
 
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*Fixed! :)

There is an odd question about privacy underlying the whole thing for sure, but I personally avoid using Firefox until the next version. Far too sluggish these days. I use Chrome because Google would never misappropriate user data...

;)
 
fidget said:
Not that "private" then is it?
Click to expand...

Depends on how you define privacy, the stats don't break down what percentile of users were browsing Brazilian fart porn at the time, just how many users had activated the feature. I highly doubt Mozilla would be collecting IPs and histories of the sessions purely because they'd bring the entire open source community into disrepute amongst the mainstream. Whilst you may not define it as 'private', Google defines 'private' as them knowing where you live, who you email, where you've been and what you've Googled and browsed. I think their defence was something along the lines of 'you can turn all that off if you go through a convoluted and lengthy procedure, so we're not at fault for coding it as the default setting.' People seem to want their cake and eat it too with the cesspool that is the intarwebz, we all cry for privacy, yet want Facebook accounts. When somebody loses their job for something in their online life we cry foul, yet want suspected paedophiles and terrorists to be monitored relentlessly.

Caveat emptor - let the buyer beware. We all know the risks of the Internet, logging on is practically the same as accepting a EULA.

But that argument is way too high brow for such an opportunity for shameless toilet humour. ;)
 
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