One other feature that could make v3.1 very important for Mozilla, however, does not yet appear to be online. This could help the feature evade its current characterization elsewhere in the press as 'porn mode.' When the user is first notified, she'll see a 'Clear Browsing History' button that will also help her erase some traces of pages she may have discovered earlier, that led her to decide to go private now. As of Beta 2, Mozilla's artists have chosen to go with a clever, 19th century formal mask icon, like something you'd find in a masquerade ball. There had been some discussion about how to characterize private browsing as an icon.

In our earliest glimpses of this feature under Beta 2, we've found it to be functional and it was actually working quite well in some of the earlier private developer builds. In this mode, browsing history, cookies, and other traces of where the user has been, are not recorded for the duration of the session.

Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 does feature private browsing mode, in the no-frills packaging that developers have promised.

Download mozilla firefox 3 beta 2