By now, we all know our Internet searching habits aren't very private. Social media manages to log our every activity even when we think we're being careful, and extensive search histories make us vulnerable to any number of prying eyes.
With that in mind, Firefox is hoping to make it easier to perform private searches on its next available browser update, Firefox 20.
The new beta versions of Firefox 20 feature tab-specific private browsing options that disable browser-recording features like history and cookies. The beta version is currently available for Windows, Mac and Linux-based computers, as well as Android devices.
The feature may not seem new to Firefox users, but making a private search tab-specific means it's much less of a hassle to use the service. Before, starting a private search meant that Firefox would have to save all your tabs, close the browser down entirely, and then open a new window in private search mode without any of your previous tabs restored.
Now, users will be able to surf normally, open a new tab with private search turned out, and switch back and forth between public and private surfing options in the same window.
In addition to private search on a tab-by-tab basis, Firefox 20 also adds a few other features. If the browser's default search bar is changed due to the download of some third-party software, Firefox will offer users the opportunity to change it back to the original. What's more, when a plug-in freezes, Firefox will now let you choose to restart the plug-in itself rather than forcing you to restart the entire window.
When the browser will go out of beta isn't quite clear yet. Mozilla only recently released Firefox 19, which features a built-in PDF viewer to save users the time needed to download files and open them in a separate program.
You can see a full list of features in the beta here.
