What is InPrivate Browsing?

InPrivate Browsing enables you to surf the web without leaving a trail in Internet Explorer. This helps prevent anyone else who might be using your computer from seeing what sites you visited and what you looked at on the web. You can start InPrivate Browsing from the New Tab page or the Safety button.

When you start InPrivate Browsing, Internet Explorer opens a new browser window. The protection that InPrivate Browsing provides is in effect only during the time that you use that window. You can open as many tabs as you want in that window, and they will all be protected by InPrivate Browsing. However, if you open another browser window, that window will not be protected by InPrivate Browsing. To end your InPrivate Browsing session, close the browser window.

While you are surfing the web using InPrivate Browsing, Internet Explorer stores some information such as cookies and temporary Internet files, so the WebPages you visit will work correctly. However, at the end of your InPrivate Browsing session, this information is discarded. The following table describes which information InPrivate Browsing discards when you close the browser and how it is affected during your browsing session:

Information	How it is affected by InPrivate Browsing
Cookies	Kept in memory so pages work correctly, but cleared when you close the browser.
Temporary Internet Files	Stored on disk so pages work correctly, but deleted when you close the browser.
Webpage history	This information is not stored.
Form data and passwords	This information is not stored.
Anti-phishing cache	Temporary information is encrypted and stored so pages work correctly.
Address bar and search AutoComplete	This information is not stored.
Automatic Crash Restore (ACR)	ACR can restore a tab when it crashes in a session, but if the whole window crashes, data is deleted and the window cannot be restored.
Document Object Model (DOM) storage	The DOM storage is a kind of "super cookie" web developers can use to retain information. Like regular cookies, they are not kept after the window is closed.