Every computer comes stock with some sort of Internet browser; whether it be Internet Explorer, FireFox, Safari, etc. These browsers start out completely uncensored and unblocked. This is the prospect of America; you have absolute freedom unless you choose to limit it. Parents who buy their young kids computers have to go in and manually install child-blocking software and other censoring programs. This is all done by choice, and is completely unnecessary to the correct function of the computer.

This is true of most countries, the United States being the most prominent. There are some places where the government censorship is running rampant and is instated unwillingly upon its citizens. These places are few and far between, but are highly publicized for their censorship and other injustices on their citizens. China is a prime example. “The Great Firewall of China” is what China’s censoring agenda is satirically known as, and its citizens are becoming fed up with it. The people of this nation used to just be defeated by it, and would never do anything to try and help themselves out of desperation, but recently, movements have been made to free them. People in the Americas and other free nations set up proxy servers to send aid to their companions in less-than-democratic nations. These anonymous proxies ensure anonymous browsing for the citizens, who run the risk of being caught for their “crimes”; YouTube, FaceBook, etc.

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For months, Microsoft and bloggers have been discussing the added privacy features Internet Explorer 8 offers to its consumers.  In many ways, these changes are similar to Mozilla, Safari and other browsers have offered to the net surfers for a time.  IE8 centered its attention around the security and ease of use to users.  Some of the added features include InPrivate Browsing, Delete Browsing History, InPrivate Blocking, and InPrivate Subscriptions.  Other areas to include improvements in RSS, cascading style sheets, and AJAX (the information exchange).  Simply stated, IE8 is promising a safer environment for the surfer.

InPrivate Browsing puts you in control.  You have the option to allow Internet Explorer to save your browsing history, cookies and other private data exchanged on the net.  By having the ability to Delete Browsing History, you are able to manage whether or not websites that you have visited are saved.  While saving your website history may appear to be an added convenience for later use, this is not exactly a safe way to operate from a privacy perspective.

InPrivate Blocking and InPrivate Subscriptions rely upon each other.  InPrivate Blocking advises you about any potentially harmful outside source that is in a position to view your browsing history.  Once the information has been relayed to you, you are given an opportunity to block the outside source.  This feature is Internet Explorer’s version of Privacy Mode, commonly referred to as “porn” mode.  InPrivate Subscriptions are a list of websites that you have created and named safe or unsafe.  If there is a site that you question security, you have the option of adding it to the blocked list.

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